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The Journal of Neuroscience, July 1, 2002, 22(13):5659-5668

Disinhibition Outside Receptive Fields in the Visual Cortex

Gary A. Walker, Izumi Ohzawa, and Ralph D. Freeman

Group in Vision Science, School of Optometry, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-2020

By definition, the region outside the classical receptive field (CRF) of a neuron in the visual cortex does not directly activate the cell. However, the response of a neuron can be influenced by stimulation of the surrounding area. In previous work, we showed that this influence is mainly suppressive and that it is generally limited to a local region outside the CRF. In the experiments reported here, we investigate the mechanisms of the suppressive effect. Our approach is to find the position of a grating patch that is most effective in suppressing the response of a cell. We then use a masking stimulus at different contrasts over the grating patch in an attempt to disinhibit the response. We find that suppressive effects may be partially or completely reversed by use of the masking stimulus. This disinhibition suggests that effects from outside the CRF may be local. Although they do not necessarily underlie the perceptual analysis of a figure-ground visual scene, they may provide a substrate for this process.

Key words: visual cortex; receptive field; nonclassical receptive field; figure-ground; disinhibition; single cortical neurons

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Copyright © 2002 Society for Neuroscience  0270-6474/02/22135659-10$05.00/0

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