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Rethinking the taxonomy of visual neurons

Neurons in primary visual cortex have long been classified into simple and complex cells, but a new paper notes that different firing patterns need not imply different underlying circuitry.

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Figure 1: A bimodal firing-rate distribution arising from a unimodal distribution of input currents.
Figure 2: Bimodal distributions of F1/F0 indicating distinct populations of simple and complex cells.

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Abbott, L., Chance, F. Rethinking the taxonomy of visual neurons. Nat Neurosci 5, 391–392 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn0502-391

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