Modelling the primary neural processing in mammal's visual system.

Author(s)

Rodrigo Freire Oliveira

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Ribeirão Preto.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (PCARP/BC)
• Defense date: 2001-09-19

Examining board members

Antonio Carlos Roque da Silva Filho; Luciano da Fontoura Costa; Jose Aparecido da Silva

• Advisor: Antonio Carlos Roque da Silva Filho

Abstract

Since the discovery of the receptive field properties of cortical neurons in the primary visual cortex, their organization has been studied with many methods ranging from electrophysiology and optical imaging to computational neuroscience. Few models have been capable of showing ocularity and orientation selectivity simultaneously. A large-scale computational model of the mammalian primary visual pathway was constructed using GENESIS 2.2. The model consists of ~10,000 biologically plausible neurons organized in eight arrays to represent sectors of two retinas, two laminae of the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus and two laminae of the visual cortex (each cortical lamina composed of a matrix of excitatory neurons and a matrix of inhibitory neurons). The physiological and architecture properties of the model were derived from experimental data for the mammalian primary visual pathway. Neurons have shown ocular and orientation selectivity dependent responses in good agreement with data. Though neurons in the cortex have shown markedly heterogeneity in the tuning responses, the latency of response was uniform and in good agreement with reported data. (AU)