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State-dependent receptive-field restructuring in the visual cortex

Nature volume 396, pages 165–168 (1998)Cite this article

Abstract

To extract important information from the environment on a useful timescale, the visual system must be able to adapt rapidly to constantly changing scenes. This requires dynamic control of visual resolution, possibly at the level of the responses of single neurons. Individual cells in the visual cortex respond to light stimuli on particular locations (receptive fields) on the retina, and the structure of these receptive fields can change in different contexts1,2,3,4. Here we show experimentally that the shape of receptive fields in the primary visual cortex of anaesthetized cats undergoes significant modifications, which are correlated with the general state of the brain as assessed by electroencephalography: receptive fields are wider during synchronized states and smaller during non-synchronized states. We also show that cortical receptive fields shrink over time when stimulated with flashing light spots. Finally, by using a network model we account for the changing size of the cortical receptive fields by dynamically rescaling the levels of excitation and inhibition in the visual thalamus and cortex. The observed dynamic changes in the sizes of the cortical receptive field could be a reflection of a process that adapts the spatial resolution within the primary visual pathway to different states of excitability.

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Figure 1: Temporal characteristics of LGN responses to flashing light spots (peristimulus time histograms) during different EEG states.
Figure 2: Changing shape of cortical receptive fields during different EEG states.
Figure 3: Scatter plot of EEG state versus subfield width for 97 subfields.
Figure 4: Shrinking of the receptive-field width for cortical cells as time after stimulation increases.
Figure 5: Model of the primary visual pathway during a synchronized and a non-synchronized EEG, and receptive-field maps for the corresponding states.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the support of the DFG and the HFSP. We thank J. Macklis for suggestions on the manuscript.

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  1. Institut für Physiologie, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, D-44780, Bochum, Germany

    Florentin Wörgötter, Katrin Suder, Yongqiang Zhao, Nicolas Kerscher, Ulf T. Eysel & Klaus Funke

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  1. Florentin Wörgötter
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Correspondence to Florentin Wörgötter.

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Wörgötter, F., Suder, K., Zhao, Y. et al. State-dependent receptive-field restructuring in the visual cortex. Nature 396, 165–168 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/24157

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