Topic: stimulus space

Sensory coding in olfaction remains poorly understood. Unlike in vision, where the stimulus space is well-characterized, the complexity of the "odor space" and the complexity of the olfactory receptor (OR) repertoire has hindered our understanding of odor coding and processing. There is no consensus on key defining features of odor sensation, such as the dimensionality of odor perceptual or odor receptor space. It is commonly conjectured that the ORs transform the high-dimensional "chemical space" to a relatively low-dimensional space of neuronal representations. We developed a novel method f

Center-surround processing (CSP) is a ubiquitous feature of the brain, starting from early sensory processing (e.g., context-dependent retinal encoding) to representing abstract concepts (e.g., context-dependent object representation), manifesting itself in both behavior and neural responses. While CSP in neural responses is typically modeled using divisive normalization or in purely descriptive terms, none of them can account for the bewildering range of effects documented for CSP of motion alone. Furthermore, a normative model that links these neural effects to function and behavior is still