Abstract
The Bienenstock, Cooper, and Munro (BCM) theory of synaptic plasticity has successfully reproduced the development of orientation selectivity and ocular dominance in kitten visual cortex in normal, as well as deprived, visual environments. To better compare the consequences of this theory with experiment, previous abstractions of the visual environment are replaced in this work by real visual images with retinal processing. The visual environment is represented by 24 gray-scale natural images that are shifted across retinal fields. In this environment, the BCM neuron develops receptive fields similar to the fields of simple cells found in kitten striate cortex. These fields display adjacent excitatory and inhibitory bands when tested with spot stimuli, orientation selectivity when tested with bar stimuli, and spatial-frequency selectivity when tested with sinusoidal gratings. In addition, their development in various deprived visual environments agrees with experimental results.
Full text
PDF
Images in this article
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Bienenstock E. L., Cooper L. N., Munro P. W. Theory for the development of neuron selectivity: orientation specificity and binocular interaction in visual cortex. J Neurosci. 1982 Jan;2(1):32–48. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.02-01-00032.1982. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Buisseret P., Imbert M. Visual cortical cells: their developmental properties in normal and dark reared kittens. J Physiol. 1976 Feb;255(2):511–525. doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.1976.sp011293. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Clothiaux E. E., Bear M. F., Cooper L. N. Synaptic plasticity in visual cortex: comparison of theory with experiment. J Neurophysiol. 1991 Nov;66(5):1785–1804. doi: 10.1152/jn.1991.66.5.1785. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Hubel D. H., Wiesel T. N. The period of susceptibility to the physiological effects of unilateral eye closure in kittens. J Physiol. 1970 Feb;206(2):419–436. doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.1970.sp009022. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Jones J. P., Palmer L. A. An evaluation of the two-dimensional Gabor filter model of simple receptive fields in cat striate cortex. J Neurophysiol. 1987 Dec;58(6):1233–1258. doi: 10.1152/jn.1987.58.6.1233. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Mastronarde D. N. Correlated firing of retinal ganglion cells. Trends Neurosci. 1989 Feb;12(2):75–80. doi: 10.1016/0166-2236(89)90140-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Miller K. D., Keller J. B., Stryker M. P. Ocular dominance column development: analysis and simulation. Science. 1989 Aug 11;245(4918):605–615. doi: 10.1126/science.2762813. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Mioche L., Singer W. Chronic recordings from single sites of kitten striate cortex during experience-dependent modifications of receptive-field properties. J Neurophysiol. 1989 Jul;62(1):185–197. doi: 10.1152/jn.1989.62.1.185. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- WIESEL T. N., HUBEL D. H. SINGLE-CELL RESPONSES IN STRIATE CORTEX OF KITTENS DEPRIVED OF VISION IN ONE EYE. J Neurophysiol. 1963 Nov;26:1003–1017. doi: 10.1152/jn.1963.26.6.1003. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]