Behavioral receptive field for ocular following in humans: dynamics of spatial summation and center-surround interactions.

Full Abstract

Visual neurons integrate information over a finite part of the visual field with high selectivity. This classical receptive field is modulated by peripheral inputs that play a role in both neuronal response normalization and contextual modulations. However, the consequences of these properties for visuomotor transformations are yet incompletely understood. To explore those, we recorded short-latency ocular following responses in humans to large center-only and center-surround stimuli. We found that eye movements are triggered by a mechanism that integrates motion over a restricted portion of the visual field, the size of which depends on stimulus contrast and increases as a function of time after response onset. We also found evidence for a strong nonisodirectional center-surround organization, responsible for normalizing the central, driving input so that motor responses are set to their most linear contrast dynamics. Such response normalization is delayed about 20 ms relative to tracking onset, gradually builds up over time, and is partly tuned for surround orientation/direction. These results outline the spatiotemporal organization of a behavioral receptive field, which might reflect a linear integration among subpopulations of cortical visual motion detectors.

Author information

Author/s: Barthélemy, Frédéric V (FV); Vanzetta, Ivo (I); Masson, Guillaume S (GS);

Affiliation: Institut de Neurosciences Cognitives de la Méditerranée, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Unité Mixte de Recherche 6193, Aix-Marseille Université, Marseille, France.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Randomized Controlled Trial; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Journal of neurophysiology (J Neurophysiol), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Jun; vol 95 (issue 6) : pp 3712-26

Dates: Created 2006/05/19; Completed 2006/07/17; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 16554515, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 2/18/2009, IMS Date: )

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