Different anisotropies for texture and grating stimuli in the visual map of cat striate cortex
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Updated: Nov 7, 2026

08:49
Visualization of Cortical Modules in Flattened Mammalian Cortices
Published on: January 22, 2018
Vision Research
|July 1, 1993
Abstract:
A comparison was made of the directional preferences of cat area 17 cells tested with two different stimuli, gratings and random-dot patterns. Depending on the stimulus, different distributions of direction preferences (anisotropies) were found in the same cells of the central representation of upper layers. With gratings most common preferred directions were vertical and horizontal. With textures, however, horizontal preferred directions were most common. In contrast, lower layer neurons had a bias for vertical preferred directions regardless of the type of stimulus used.
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Somatosensation
The somatosensory system relays sensory information from the skin, mucous membranes, limbs, and joints. Somatosensation is more familiarly known as the sense of touch. A typical somatosensory pathway includes three types of long neurons: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary neurons have cell bodies located near the spinal cord in groups of neurons called dorsal root ganglia. The sensory neurons of ganglia innervate designated areas of skin called dermatomes.
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