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Brief Communication

Nature Neuroscience 10, 552–554 (1 May 2007) | doi:10.1038/nn1887

Detection and prediction of periodic patterns by the retina

Greg Schwartz , Rob Harris , David Shrom & Michael J Berry

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.