Abstract
We examined responses of neurons of the field 21b of the cat brain cortex to presentation of moving visual stimuli of different forms. Characteristics of the responses of about 54% of the studied neurons showed that in these cases configurations of the contours of moving stimuli were to a certain extent discriminated. Most neurons selectively reacting to changes in the form of the stimulus were dark-sensitive units (they generated optimum responses to presentation of dark visual stimuli on the light background). Detailed examination of the spatial infrastructure of receptive fields (RFs) of the neurons and comparison of this structure with the selectivity of neuronal responses showed that there is no significant correlation between static organization of the RF and responses of the neuron to the movements of stimuli of different forms. We hypothesize that the dynamic infrastructure of the RF and the combined activity of functional groups of neurons, whose RFs spatially overlap the RF of the neuron under study, play a definite role in the mechanisms responsible for neuronal discrimination of the form of the visual stimulus.
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Neirofiziologiya/Neurophysiology, Vol. 38, No. 1, pp. 61–71, January–February, 2006.
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Khachvankyan, D.K., Sharambekyan, A.B., Grigoryan, G.G. et al. Responses of neurons of the extrastriate cortex of the cat brain to moving stimuli of different forms. Neurophysiology 38, 53–62 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11062-006-0026-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11062-006-0026-x