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Effects of generalized pooling on binocular disparity selectivity of neurons in the early visual cortex.

ABSTRACT: The key problem of stereoscopic vision is traditionally defined as accurately finding the positional shifts of corresponding object features between left and right images. Here, we demonstrate that the problem must be considered in a four-dimensional parameter space; with respect not only to shifts in space (X, Y), but also spatial frequency (SF) and orientation (OR). The proposed model sums outputs of binocular energy units linearly over the multi-dimensional V1 parameter space (X, Y, SF, OR). Theoretical analyses and physiological experiments show that many binocular neurons achieve sharp binocular tuning properties by pooling the output of multiple neurons with relatively broad tuning. Pooling in the space domain sharpens disparity-selective responses in the SF domain so that the responses to combinations of unmatched left-right SFs are attenuated. Conversely, pooling in the SF domain sharpens disparity selectivity in the space domain, reducing the possibility of false matches. Analogous effects are observed for the OR domain in that the spatial pooling sharpens the binocular tuning in the OR domain. Such neurons become selective to relative OR disparity. Therefore, pooling allows the visual system to refine binocular information into a form more desirable for stereopsis.This article is part of the themed issue 'Vision in our three-dimensional world'.

SUBMITTER: Kato D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4901460 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Effects of generalized pooling on binocular disparity selectivity of neurons in the early visual cortex.

Kato Daisuke D Baba Mika M Sasaki Kota S KS Ohzawa Izumi I

Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences 20160601 1697

The key problem of stereoscopic vision is traditionally defined as accurately finding the positional shifts of corresponding object features between left and right images. Here, we demonstrate that the problem must be considered in a four-dimensional parameter space; with respect not only to shifts in space (X, Y), but also spatial frequency (SF) and orientation (OR). The proposed model sums outputs of binocular energy units linearly over the multi-dimensional V1 parameter space (X, Y, SF, OR). ...[more]

PMID: 27269609

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Project description:In invertebrate predators such as the praying mantis and vertebrate predators such as wild cats the ability to detect small differences in inter-ocular retinal disparities is a critical means for accurately determining the depth of moving objects such as prey. In mammals, the first neurons along the visual pathway that encode binocular disparities are found in the visual cortex. However, a precise functional architecture for binocular disparity has never been demonstrated in any species, and coarse maps for disparity have been found in only one primate species. Moreover, the dominant approach for assaying the developmental plasticity of binocular cortical neurons used monocular tests of ocular dominance to infer binocular function. The few studies that examined the relationship between ocular dominance and binocular disparity of individual cells used single-unit recordings and have provided conflicting results regarding whether ocular dominance can predict the selectivity or sensitivity to binocular disparity. We used two-photon calcium imaging to sample the response to monocular and binocular visual stimuli from nearly every adjacent neuron in a small region of the cat visual cortex, area 18. Here we show that local circuits for ocular dominance always have smooth and graded transitions from one apparently monocular functional domain to an adjacent binocular region. Most unexpectedly, we discovered a new map in the cat visual cortex that had a precise functional micro-architecture for binocular disparity selectivity. At the level of single cells, ocular dominance was unrelated to binocular disparity selectivity or sensitivity. When the local maps for ocular dominance and binocular disparity both had measurable gradients at a given cortical site, the two gradient directions were orthogonal to each other. Together, these results indicate that, from the perspective of the spiking activity of individual neurons, ocular dominance cannot predict binocular disparity tuning. However, the precise local arrangement of ocular dominance and binocular disparity maps provide new clues regarding how monocular and binocular depth cues may be combined and decoded.

Dataset Information

Effects of generalized pooling on binocular disparity selectivity of neurons in the early visual cortex.

Publications

Effects of generalized pooling on binocular disparity selectivity of neurons in the early visual cortex.

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