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A mathematical interpretation of motor reactions to fixed and moving stimulation of the eye

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Abstract

The results of experiments performed by L.S. Stone and by R. W. Sperry on vision in salamanders are analyzed. A summary of Reichardt's theory, which originated in the researches of B. Hassenstein on insects, is given, and an application to salamanders is carried out.

Introducing a simpler mathematical development based on the onefactor theory of excitation, the same formal results are obtained. A complete model, which includes those results and tries to fit the salamander behavior described by stone, is elaborated and translated into Boolean terms. As a complementary consideration, it is pointed out that the functional rigidity of the visuomotor system, deriving from a biological molecular hysteresis, could be framed in theneuro-affinity principle, the spatial expression of which would turn out to be abiological field.

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Author notes

  1. Maximo Valentinuzzi

    Present address: Instituto Nacional de Microbiologia, Avenida Vélez Sarsfield 563, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Committee on Mathematical Biology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, USA

    Maximo Valentinuzzi

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  1. Maximo Valentinuzzi
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Additional information

This research was supported by the United States Air Force through the Air Force Office of Scientific Research of the Air Research and Development Command under Contract No. AF 18(600)-1454. Reproduction in whole or in part is permitted for any purpose of the United States Government.

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Valentinuzzi, M. A mathematical interpretation of motor reactions to fixed and moving stimulation of the eye. Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics 21, 327–341 (1959). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02477893

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02477893

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