Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Contrast invariance of functional maps in cat primary visual cortex.

Matteo Carandini1, Frank Sengpiel

  • 1Institute of Neuroinformatics, University of Zurich and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland.

Journal of Vision
|April 17, 2004
PubMed
Summary

Stimulus contrast is uniformly represented across the cat

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Neuropixels Opto: combining high-resolution electrophysiology and optogenetics.

Nature methods·2026
Same author

Brainwide blood volume reflects opposing neural populations.

Nature·2026
Same author

Mapping the visual cortex with Zebra noise and wavelets.

Journal of vision·2026
Same author

Glutamate indicators with increased sensitivity and tailored deactivation rates.

Nature methods·2025
Same author

Ultra-high-density Neuropixels probes improve detection and identification in neuronal recordings.

Neuron·2025
Same author

Brain-wide representations of prior information in mouse decision-making.

Nature·2025

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Visual Neuroscience
  • Cortical Mapping

Background:

  • Neurons in the primary visual cortex (V1) exhibit clustering based on various stimulus features, forming functional maps.
  • The spatial organization of neuronal contrast responses in cat V1 remains largely uncharacterized.
  • Potential influence of stimulus contrast on other functional maps, such as cytochrome oxidase blobs, is debated.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether neurons in cat V1 are systematically clustered by their stimulus contrast responses.
  • To determine the impact of stimulus contrast on the functional maps of orientation preference in cat V1.

Main Methods:

  • Intrinsic signal imaging was employed to measure orientation maps in cat V1 across a range of stimulus contrast levels.
  • Contrast-response functions and orientation tuning curves were analyzed on a pixel-by-pixel basis.

Main Results:

  • No evidence was found for specific regions with lower neuronal contrast thresholds.
  • Neuronal contrast responses were found to be largely uniform across the V1 surface.
  • Orientation selectivity maps were invariant with respect to stimulus contrast levels.

Conclusions:

  • Stimulus contrast is represented uniformly across the surface of the cat primary visual cortex.
  • Changes in stimulus contrast do not alter the established maps of orientation preference.
  • The findings suggest that contrast processing does not introduce new spatial organization in V1 maps.

Related Experiment Videos