The neurons in areas 17, 18 and 19 of cat are local spatiotemporal operators which extract information about local motion and texture (among other things) from the retinal image. The long range goal of the proposed research is to understand exactly how this is done and to determine the underlying principles, mechanisms and connections which underlie this early visual processing. This proposal concentrates on a portion of the larger problem - namely, the emergence of selectivity for stimulus orientation and motion in simple cells of areas 17 and 18. The work is guided by three related models: (1) simple receptive fields in area 17 act as linear spatial filters of the Gabor form, (2) a new push-pull model of geniculo-simple convergence and (3) Adelson and Bergen's energy model of human motion perception. These ideas will be experimentally tested in areas 17 and 18 of anesthetized cats with the expectation that robust explanations of orientation and direction selectivity will result. It is likely that neural correlates of the early stages of the Adelson-Berger model will be found and that orientation selectivity in simple cells will be attributed to a differential input from populations of LGN cells in a way not previously evident.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Eye Institute (NEI)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01EY007112-03
Application #
3264019
Study Section
Visual Sciences B Study Section (VISB)
Project Start
1987-07-01
Project End
1991-03-31
Budget Start
1989-07-01
Budget End
1991-03-31
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
1989
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Pennsylvania
Department
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
042250712
City
Philadelphia
State
PA
Country
United States
Zip Code
19104