title: V1 neurons respond to luminance changes faster than contrast changes.
abstract: Luminance and contrast are two major attributes of objects in the visual scene. Luminance and contrast information received by visual neurons are often updated simultaneously. We examined the temporal response properties of neurons in the primary visual cortex (V1) to stimuli whose luminance and contrast were simultaneously changed by 50 Hz. We found that response tuning to luminance changes precedes tuning to contrast changes in V1. For most V1 neurons, the onset time of response tuning to luminance changes was shorter than that to contrast changes. Most neurons carried luminance information in the early response stage, while all neurons carried both contrast and luminance information in the late response stage. The early luminance response suggests that cortical processing for luminance is not as slow as previously thought.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.|University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Wen-Liang
authors.initials: WL
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.|University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Ran
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: School of Optometry, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.affiliation: Center for Bioinformatics, National Laboratory of Protein Engineering and Plant Genetics Engineering, College of Life Sciences, Peking University, Number 5 Summer Palace Road, Beijing 100871, China.|Center for Quantitative Biology, Peking University, Number 5 Summer Palace Road, Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: Louis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Tao
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Da-Peng
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002415:Cats; D015350:Contrast Sensitivity / Q000502:physiology*; D008027:Light; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology