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Complex objects are represented in macaque inferotemporal cortex by the combination of feature columns

Nature Neuroscience volume 4, pages 832–838 (2001)Cite this article

Abstract

Intrinsic signal imaging from inferotemporal (IT) cortex, a visual area essential for object perception and recognition, revealed that visually presented objects activated patches in a distributed manner. When visual features of these objects were partially removed, the simplified stimuli activated only a subset of the patches elicited by the originals. This result, in conjunction with extracellular recording, suggests that an object is represented by a combination of cortical columns, each of which represents a visual feature (feature column). Simplification of an object occasionally caused the appearance of columns that were not active when viewing the more complex form. Thus, not all the columns related to a particular feature were necessarily activated by the original objects. Taken together, these results suggest that objects may be represented not only by simply combining feature columns but also by using a variety of combinations of active and inactive columns for individual features.

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Figure 1: Intrinsic signal imaging detects local modulation of light absorption changes in area TE.
Figure 2: Relationship between intrinsic signals and spike activity in area TE.
Figure 3: Representation of complex object images and simplifications of them in area TE.
Figure 4: Visual responsiveness of representative cells in spots A–D in Fig. 3d.
Figure 5: The optimal visual stimuli of 25 cells in spots A to D in Fig. 3d.
Figure 6: The distribution pattern of active spots elicited by two original object images (stimulus 1 and 3) and a simplified image of stimulus 1 (stimulus 2).
Figure 7: Visual responsiveness of representative cells in spots A and B in Fig. 6.

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Acknowledgements

We thank K.S. Rockland, R. Kado, K. Tanaka, and S. Edelman for comments on the manuscript, M. Fukuda for technical assistance throughout the experiments, and M. Matsumoto for modifying the data acquisition program. This project was partly supported by Precursory Research for Embryonic Science and Technology (PRESTO), Japan Science and Technology Corporation.

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Author notes

  1. Kazushige Tsunoda

    Present address: Department of Ophthalmology, Ashikaga Red Cross Hospital, Honjo 3-2100, Ashikaga-shi, Tochigi, 326-0808, Japan

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Integrative Neural Systems, Brain Science Institute, The Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN), Hirosawa 2-1, Wako-shi, 351-0198, Saitama, Japan

    Kazushige Tsunoda, Yukako Yamane, Makoto Nishizaki & Manabu Tanifuji

  2. Division of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science, Hokkaido University, 060-0810, Sapporo, Japan

    Yukako Yamane

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Correspondence to Manabu Tanifuji.

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Tsunoda, K., Yamane, Y., Nishizaki, M. et al. Complex objects are represented in macaque inferotemporal cortex by the combination of feature columns. Nat Neurosci 4, 832–838 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/90547

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