A Local Circuit Integration Approach to Understanding Visual Cortical Receptive Fields

Abstract

The traditional concept of the receptive eeld e.g., ,4, 66 holds that each portion of the receptive eeld RF, in response to a stimulus element, has unitary excitatory or in-hibitory innuence on neuronal response. Here, we argue: i receptive eeld components naturally have dual or vector both excitatory and inhibitory innuence; ii neuronal integration is better understood in terms of local cortical circuitry than single neurons. Using a large-scale model of primary visual cortex, we demonstrate that the net eeect of a given stimulus element within either the classical or extraclassical RF can switch b e t ween exci-tatory and inhibitory as global stimulus conditions change. We analyze and explain these eeects by constructing self-contained modules via a novel technique which capture local circuit interactions. These modules illustrate a new vector-based RF analysis which uniies notions of classical and extraclassical RF, treating long-range intracortical inputs on equal footing with thalamocortical inputs.