Feature selectivity in area 21a of the cat.
We compared the feature tuning of neuronal activity in area 21a with the tuning in areas 17/18. Local field potentials and multi-unit activity recorded in alert animals showed similar selectivity to orientation in both areas, higher selectivity to spatial frequencies in areas 17/18 and higher selectivity and tuning significance to temporal frequencies in areas 17/18. In addition, only at sites in areas 17/18 did the local field potential exhibit locking to a horizontal motion pattern extracted from a natural movie. These results suggest that area 21a is concerned with the analysis of spatial features but lacks a faithful representation of temporal features. Hence, they foster the hypothesis that cortical area 21a is part of a ventral form pathway.
Kayser
Christoph
C
Institute of Neuroinformatics, University & ETH Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse, Zürich, Switzerland. Kayser@tuebingen.mpg.de
König
Peter
P
D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D002415:Cats; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology; D009435:Synaptic Transmission / Q000502:physiology; D013997:Time Factors; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D014795:Visual Pathways / Q000502:physiology*