Topic: orientation preference maps

Understanding pattern variation and establishing equivalence between patterns is important to many areas of neuroscience and is made significantly more complex when the full extent of the pattern space is unknown or where it is infinite. Current studies of such patterns therefore often rely on the comparison of low dimensional pattern features to simplify comparison. We present a more comprehensive approach to pattern comparison based on statistical ensembles of circular pattern patches. We apply this approach to orientation preference maps for which previous feature-based comparisons supporte

A fundamental property of neurons in the primary visual cortex is their preference for orientation of edges. Recent studies further consolidated the finding that the spatial arrangement of orientation selective neurons in orientation domains and pinwheels is invariant across primates, carnivores and potentially even in some marsupials. No functional advantage favoring this universal common design is currently know. Here we address the question of whether the universal common design can provide a functional advantage over alternative designs. We formulate a mathematical theory formalizing the h