Modeling Functional Map Coverage in the Primary Visual Cortex

Lars Crawford, Neurobiology

Bair Lab, University of Washington
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10 Randomized Warps
Orientation (Ori)
Spatial Frequency (SF)
Ocular Dominance (OD)
Map Warping:
- Functional map layout within these models emulate biology
with respect to general shape: orientation pinwheels, spatial
frequency blobs and ocular dominance columns.
- True biological layout of these maps is far more noisy.
- A series of two dimensional radial Gabor spatial filters were
applied to add noise to the maps in an attempt to
make them appear more biologically plausible.
Coverage Factor vs. Nwarps:
- C values are far lower than in the
literature due to exquisitely uniform
maps.
- To asses the effect of map rigidity vs.
noisyness on coverage, c values were
calculated for maps with varying
numbers of Gabor spatial filters.
- Noise moves maps away from uniformity.
Coverage Factor & Activity Maps:
- Activity maps were constructed and coverage factor, c, calculated for several models with varying
distributions of spatial frequency preference. These activity maps represent stimulus space.
- Taken together, c' and the associated map of neuronal activity in stimulus space
reveal the coverage uniformity of map variable combinations.
Introduction:
The brain effortlessly carries out the daunting task of visual
perception by utilizing millions of neurons to process various
aspects of the visual scene. The systematic arrangement of
these cells across the primary visual cortex (V1) can be
described by a set of superimposed maps that convey the
orientation, scale, location and eye of origin of the image
features that best excite the neurons. Current theory
suggests these maps are arranged such that all combinations
of stimulus parameters are covered equally and continuously
in local regions across the visual cortex. Here we develop a
model that attempts to reconcile the idealization of even
coverage with known physiological and anatomical data.
Acknowledgments: I would like to thank Wyeth Bair for being an excellent mentor as well as
Pamela Baker, both for their guidance through my research from coding to model construction
to data analysis. This research was funded by the NIH Computational Neuroscience Training
Grant 5R90DA033461-03, and NSF CRCNS grant IIS-1309725.
Example V1 Receptive Field
- V1 receptive fields: multiple LGN ON/OFF cells arranged to
produce preference for spatial frequency, orientation, eye.
- 8 Ori x 25 (x,y) x 3 SF x 2 eyes = 1200 unique stimuli.
- V1 cells recieve conductance inputs from leaky integrate-
and-fire LGN cells with ON/OFF center surround receptive
fields.
ON cell OFF cell
Methods:
- We have conducted computer simulations to measure the
evenness of coverage in large-scale, biologically plausible
models of V1 composed of 224x112 cells arranged in
functional maps.
Functional Map Layout
Ocular Dominance Map (OD)
Left Eye
Right Eye
Orientation Map (Ori) Spatial Frequency Map (SF)
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ON
OFF
1 Degree Visual Angle
Ori
SF
Idealized V1 Receptive Field
Example Stimulus
1 Ori - 112.5 deg
1 SF - 1 cyc/deg
1 (x,y) Location - (2,2)
1 Eye - left
Cortical Activity
Response to Example Stimulus
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C = / (over all pixels [all stimuli] in a particular map)
Activity Map Pixel (1 unique stimulus) = ( individual V1 cell activity) / n cells
Unwarp Maps
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Spatial Frequency (SF)
Ocular Dominance (OD)
Ori Tuning Curve
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Number of Warps
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Discussion:
The concept of coverage uniformity is appealing because it
corresponds to the intuition that we should be able to see the
features of a simple shape equally well at any rotation and at
a variety of distances, and it is important because it places a
constraint on the architecture of the cortex. The data presented
here indicate that uniformity requires the cortex have a SF
distribution skewed drastically toward high SF preference to
account for a tiling effect (similar to how many small tiles are
required to fill the space of a large tile). However, that
distributions of SF found in the literature are not comparable to
those used here suggests two ideas: 1) the coverage constraint
is not met in the primate primary visual cortex or 2) high SF is
somehow being occluded during cellular tuning experiments.
Further imaging studies are necessary to illucidate the true SF
distribution in V1 in order to more accurately determine the
uniformity of coverage with respect to stimulus features.
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= 1.723595; = 0.044434; c = 0.025780
High SF Skew Model
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Most uniform map has SF distribution skewed toward high SF.
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= 1.424482; = 0.058886; c = 0.41339
Low SF Skew Model
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Linear SF Transition Model
= 1.544816; = 0.067551; c = 0.043727
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L R
Low Mid High
2 x OD
3 x SF
8x
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= 1.538703; = 0.048843; c = 0.031743
Even SF Distribution Model
X Location: 1 2 3 4 5
Y Location:
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