Brief Communication abstract


Nature Neuroscience 10, 552 - 554 (2007)
Published online: 22 April 2007 | doi:10.1038/nn1887

Detection and prediction of periodic patterns by the retina

Greg Schwartz1, Rob Harris2, David Shrom1 & Michael J Berry, II1

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A fundamental task of the brain is detecting patterns in the environment that enable predictions about the future. Here, we show that the salamander and mouse retinas can recognize a wide class of periodic temporal patterns, such that a subset of ganglion cells fire strongly and specifically in response to a violation of the periodicity. This sophisticated retinal processing may provide a substrate for hierarchical pattern detection in subsequent circuits.

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  1. Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA.
  2. Sussex Centre for Neuroscience, School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9Q6, UK.

Correspondence to: Michael J Berry, II1 e-mail: berry@princeton.edu


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