Retinal correspondence of monocular receptive fields in disparity-sensitive complex cells from area V1 in the awake...

To explore the neural mechanisms underlying disparity sensitivity in complex cells of the macaque visual cortex, the relationship between interocular receptive field (RF) positional shift and disparity sensitivity was studied in area V1.

Single-unit recordings were made from area V1 of awake Macaca mulatta. Monocular RFs were mapped by means of a reverse cross-correlation technique, and their centers were determined after performing a bidimensional Gaussian function fitting. Interocular RF shifts were calculated for both bright and dark stimuli. Similarly, Gabor adjustments were obtained from disparity profiles to bright and dark dynamic random-dot stereograms (RDSs).

Twenty-five complex cells were studied. The response profiles to disparity were similar for bright and dark RDSs. Interocular RF positional shift correlated significantly with both the peaks of Gabor fittings of disparity-sensitivity profiles and the peaks of the Gaussian envelopes of these Gabor fittings. Correlation between interocular RF positional shift and the peaks of the Gaussian envelopes was stronger than correlation between interocular RF positional shift and peaks of Gabor fittings.

Interocular shift of monocular RFs is more related to the center of the range of disparities to which the cell is sensitive, than to the preferred disparity of the cell.