Topic: reverse correlation

Neurons in the primary visual cortex (V1) of rodents are selective to the orientation of the stimulus, as in other mammals such as cats and monkeys. However, in contrast with those species, their neurons display a very different type of spatial organization. Instead of orientation maps they are organized in a “salt and pepper” pattern, where adjacent neurons have completely different preferred orientations. This structure has motivated both experimental and theoretical research with the objective of determining which aspects of the connectivity patterns and intrinsic neuronal responses can exp

In visual scenes, the presence of corner elements greatly simplifies object recognition [1]. It has been suggested that cortical area V4 is responsible for the processing of these elements, since neurons exhibit selectivity for different curvatures [2]. However, V4 response properties and their contribution to contour integration or shape completion are still far from being understood. We investigated visually-evoked responses of macaque V4 neurons to sparse random stimuli, composed of angled segments pointing in two directions like clock hands (Fig 1a). Recordings were obtained using a 96-cha