Summary
We have characterized the speed of response of simple cells in cat striate cortex by the temporal phase of the response to bar and grating stimuli. Stimulation of the most responsive sub-region (either ON or OFF) in the receptive field with a 1 Hz temporally modulated bar elicited responses whose phase led the excitatory phase of the stimulus by about 25°. The response to stationary gratings whose contrast was sinusoidally modulated at 2 Hz also showed a phase lead. The differences in the phase of response of ON and OFF sub-regions exhibited a marked scatter about the expected value of 180°. The phase of response to both temporally modulated bars and laterally moving gratings advanced by 20–35° as the stimulus contrast was raised by a factor of 5.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Benevento LA, Creutzfeldt OD, Kuhnt U (1972) Significance of intracortical inhibition in the visual cortex. Nature New Biol 238: 124–126
Bullier J, Henry GH (1979) Neural path taken by afferent streams in striate cortex of the cat. J Neurophysiol 42: 1264–1270
Campbell FW, Green DG (1965) Optical and retinal factors affecting visual resolution. J Physiol (Lond) 161: 576–593
Cynader M, Gardner J, Douglas R (1977) Neural mechanisms underlying stereoscopic depth perception in the cat visual cortex. In: Cool SJ, Smith EL III (eds) Frontiers in visual science. Springer, New York
Dean AF (1981) The relationship between response amplitude and contrast for cat striate cortical neurones. J Physiol (Lond) 318: 413–427
Dean AF, Tolhurst DJ (1983) On the distinctness of simple and complex cells in the visual cortex of the cat. J Physiol (Lond) 344: 305–325
Dean AF, Tolhurst DJ, Walker NS (1982) Non-linear temporal summation by simple cells in cat striate cortex demonstrated by failure of superposition. Exp Brain Res 45: 456–458
Dreher B (1972) Hypercomplex cells in the cat's striate cortex. Invest Ophthalmol 11: 355–356
Enroth-Cugell C, Robson JG (1966) The contrast sensitivity of retinal ganglion cells of the cat. J Physiol (Lond) 187: 517–552
Enroth-Cugell C, Hertz BG, Lennie P (1977) Cone signals in the cat's retina. J Physiol (Lond) 269: 273–296
Gilbert CD (1977) Laminar differences in receptive field properties in cat primary visual cortex. J Physiol (Lond) 268: 391–421
Hammond P (1978) Inadequacy of nitrous oxide/oxygen mixtures for maintaining anaesthesia in cats: satisfactory alternatives. Pain 5: 143–151
Henry GH (1977) Receptive field classes of cells in the striate cortex of the cat. Brain Res 133: 1–28
Henry GH, Goodwin AW, Bishop PO (1978) Spatial summation of responses in receptive fields of single cells in cat striate cortex. Exp Brain Res 32: 245–266
Hochstein S, Shapley RM (1976) Quantitative analysis of retinal ganglion cell classifications. J Physiol (Lond) 262: 237–264
Hubel DH, Wiesel TN (1962) Receptive fields, binocular interaction and functional architecture in the cat's visual cortex. J Physiol (Lond) 160: 106–154
Ikeda H, Wright MJ (1972) Receptive field organization of ‘sustained’ and ‘transient’ retinal ganglion cells which subserve different functional roles. J Physiol (Lond) 227: 769–800
Ikeda H, Wright MJ (1975) Retinotopic distribution, visual latency and orientation tuning of ‘sustained’ and ‘transient’ cortical neurones in area 17 of the cat. Exp Brain Res 22: 385–398
Innocenti GM, Fiore L (1974) Post-synaptic inhibitory components of the responses to moving stimuli in area 17. Brain Res 80: 122–126
Lee BB, Cleland BG, Creutzfeldt OD (1977) The retinal inputs to cells in area 17 of the cat's cortex. Exp Brain Res 30: 527–538
Lee BB, Elepfandt A, Virsu V (1981) Phase of response to sinusoidal gratings of simple cells in cat striate cortex. J Neurophysiol 45: 818–828
Merrill EG, Ainsworth A (1972) Glass-coated platinum-plated tungsten micro-electrodes. Med Biol Eng Comput 10: 662–672
Movshon JA, Thompson ID, Tolhurst DJ (1978) Spatial summation within the receptive fields of simple cells in the cat's striate cortex. J Physiol (Lond) 283: 53–77
Mullikin WH, Jones JP, Davis TL (1981) Receptive fields and laminar distribution of X-like and Y-like simple cells. Soc Neurosci Abstr 7: 356
Ohzawa I, Sclar G, Freeman RD (1981) Contrast gain control in the cat visual cortex. Nature (Lond) 298: 266–268
Palmer LA, Davis TL (1981) Receptive field structure in cat striate cortex. J Neurophysiol 46: 260–276
Rose D (1977) Responses of single units in cat visual cortex to moving bars of light. J Physiol (Lond) 217: 1–23
Shapley RM, Victor JD (1978) The effect of contrast on the transfer properties of cat retinal ganglion cells. J Physiol (Lond) 285: 275–298
Sillito AM (1977) Inhibitory processes underlying the directional specificity of simple, complex and hypercomplex cells in the cat's visual cortex. J Physiol (Lond) 271: 699–720
Tanaka K (1983) Cross-correlation analysis of geniculostriate neuronal relationships in cat. J Neurophysiol 49: 1303–1318
Tolhurst DJ, Thompson ID (1981) On the variety of spatial frequency selectivities shown by neurones in area 17 of the cat. Proc R Soc B 213: 183–199
Tolhurst DJ, Walker NS, Thompson ID, Dean AF (1980) Nonlinearities of temporal summation in neurones in area 17 of the cat. Exp Brain Res 38: 431–435
Toyama K, Maekawa K, Takeda T (1977) Convergence of retinal inputs onto visual cortical cells. I. A study of the cells monosynaptically excited from the lateral geniculate body. Brain Res 137: 207–220
Watson AB, Ahumada AJ, Jr (1983) A look at motion in the frequency domain. NASA Technical Memorandum 84352: 1–10
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Dean, A.F., Tolhurst, D.J. Factors influencing the temporal phase of response to bar and grating stimuli for simple cells in the cat striate cortex. Exp Brain Res 62, 143–151 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00237410
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00237410