The long-term goal of this work is to understand the neural mechanisms of visual form perception. The current project aims to study the processing of modestly complex visual stimuli such as smooth contours, junctions and texture boundaries in primary visual cortex (V1). Recent evidence suggests that V1 is much more than just a bank of filters that passively extracts the simplest elements (e.g. short oriented line segments) from all visual input, as was earlier believed. Rather, the elemental components of complex stimuli interact strongly with each other to give V1 responses that could differ dramatically from the responses to the individual components. The current project is intended to test the hypothesis that such complex visual processing can be predicted from the columnar architecture and intrinsic circuitry of VI. In particular, it is proposed that cortical columns tuned to elemental components of a complex stimulus (e.g. line segments at particular retinotopic positions, orientations, color contrast etc.) facilitate and inhibit each other in predictable ways through intrinsic V1 circuitry to generate tuning for the composite whole. Further, that the complex tuning of any given V1 neuron can be predicted from its geographical position on cortex relative to columns activated by the complex stimulus in question. This hypothesis will be tested by studying the V1 processing for different families of complex stimuli including smooth contours, junctions and texture boundaries that are perceptually important for scene segmentation. A combination of optical imaging and electrode recordings in alert monkey V1 will be used for this study. Optical imaging will allow for mapping the cortical positions of neurons responding to each complex stimulus and its individual components. Electrode recordings and cross correlations, guided by optical images, will be used to measure the intracortical interactions between the same groups of neurons. The complex tuning computed on the basis of these interactions can then be compared with the measured values and thus test our hypothesis. The proposed combination of optical imaging and electrode recording will make it possible to elucidate the geometry of cortical mechanisms underlying V1 tuning, a goal that is not reachable through electrode recordings alone. The results of this study will provide a broad framework for understanding the cortical processing of complex visual stimuli, an essential step for clinical applications including the design of visual prostheses for the blind.
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