[Structure of the simple receptive field of the cat visual cortex]

Comparison of the cat simple receptive field (No. 17) responses to sinusoidal gratings and to thin light and dark bars showed that the excitatory and inhibitory on- and off-zones are composed by on- and off-subfields of corpus geniculatum, converging to the cortical neurons. Each zone comprises a pair of opponent subfields -- excitatory and inhibitory. Such an organization reveals the linear properties of the fields. However a real simple field is a nonlinear system because of available deviations from such an ideal organization. The deviations are manifested in mutual displacement of the subfields, inhomogeneity of the subfields and absence of an antagonistic subfield in the zone. Phasic and tonic subfields may be present simultaneously even within the same field.