In: Biology
How is an image organized in the lateral geniculate nucleus, the primary visual cortex?
ANS. The lateral geniculate nucleus of the thalamus is a layered structure that receives segregated input from the two eyes and projects to the primary visual cortex. geniculate neurons have Centre surround receptive fields that are similar to those of their retinal inputs. tn contrast most neurons in the primary visual cortex are sensitive to the orientation of a stimulus. in mammalian species there are elements of both hierarchal and parallel processing in the primary visual cortex. in the macaque monkey the focus has been on the parallel pathways that are kept relatively separate in the striate and extrastriate cortex. the visual cortex has an orderly functional architecture. neurons within a cortical column have similar receptive field attributes such as orientation selectivity, ocular dominance, and receptive field location. each of these receptive field attributes varies smoothly over the cortical surface. the organization of ocular dominance columns and orientation columns across the cortical surface can be visualized with optical imaging.