title: Predicting functional properties of visual cortex from an evolutionary scaling law.
abstract: The number of neurons in the primary visual cortex (V1) is, across primate species, related to the number of neurons in the visual thalamus (the lateral geniculate nucleus [LGN]) by a power law with an exponent of 3/2. This evolutionary scaling law is explained by a simple relation according to which the fineness of resolution in cortex is related to the number of neurons in the area of cortex used to process the information from a single point of light (the point-spread area). The same theory provides a link between two functional properties of the visual cortex, the areal cortical magnification factor (ACMF) and the receptive field (RF) area.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002144:Callithrix / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology; D002428:Cebus / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology; D005701:Galago / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology; D005829:Geniculate Bodies / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011323:Primates / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D014794:Visual Fields / Q000502:physiology; D014795:Visual Pathways / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*