The complex structure of receptive fields in the middle temporal area.
The complex structure of receptive fields in the middle temporal area.
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DOI：
10.3389/fnsys.2013.00002
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发表时间：
2013
影响因子：
3
通讯作者：
Krekelberg B
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Richert M;Albright TD;Krekelberg B
中颞区（MT）的神经元通常被视为运动检测器，它们在单个空间区域中偏好单个运动方向。这个假设在我们理解视觉处理，特别是运动处理模型中起着重要的作用。我们在清醒的行为猴子的MT区使用细胞外记录（M。Mulatta）来用新的反向相关方法测试该假设。在我们的样本中，近一半的MT神经元明显偏离经典观点。首先，在许多细胞中，方向偏好随着刺激在感受野内的位置而改变。其次，空间响应曲线通常具有多个峰值，其间具有明显的间隙。这表明MT中的视觉运动分析可以访问比通常认为的更复杂的运动检测器。这种复杂性可能仅仅是发育不完善的副产品，但也可以理解为横向连接的MT神经元之间非线性、经常性相互作用的自然结果。未来研究的一个重要方向是研究这些同质性是否有利，如何将它们纳入运动检测模型，以及它们是否可以提供对潜在有效连接的定量洞察。
Neurons in the middle temporal area (MT) are often viewed as motion detectors that prefer a single direction of motion in a single region of space. This assumption plays an important role in our understanding of visual processing, and models of motion processing in particular. We used extracellular recordings in area MT of awake, behaving monkeys (M. mulatta) to test this assumption with a novel reverse correlation approach. Nearly half of the MT neurons in our sample deviated significantly from the classical view. First, in many cells, direction preference changed with the location of the stimulus within the receptive field. Second, the spatial response profile often had multiple peaks with apparent gaps in between. This shows that visual motion analysis in MT has access to motion detectors that are more complex than commonly thought. This complexity could be a mere byproduct of imperfect development, but can also be understood as the natural consequence of the non-linear, recurrent interactions among laterally connected MT neurons. An important direction for future research is to investigate whether these in homogeneities are advantageous, how they can be incorporated into models of motion detection, and whether they can provide quantitative insight into the underlying effective connectivity.