Topic: Sminthopsis crassicaudata

Orientation selectivity is a prominent feature of neurons in the mammalian primary visual cortex, but there is a dichotomy in the spatial arrangement of these neurons across species. Primates, carnivores and marsupials have orientation-selective neurons organized into structured columns forming two-dimensional maps around pinwheel centers. In contrast, rodents display a seemingly random "salt-and-pepper" organization. The evolutionary versus the environmental basis of this distinction remains unclear. Using intrinsic imaging and massed single-cell recordings, we investigated the organization o