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The Journal of Neuroscience, April 15, 2002, 22(8):3189-3205
The Timing of Response Onset and Offset in Macaque Visual
Neurons
Wyeth
Bair1, 2,
James R.
Cavanaugh2,
Matthew A.
Smith2, and
J.
Anthony
Movshon1, 2
1 Howard Hughes Medical Institute and
2 Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York,
New York 10003
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ABSTRACT |
We used fast, pseudorandom temporal sequences of preferred and
antipreferred stimuli to drive neuronal firing rates rapidly between
minimal and maximal across the visual system. Stimuli were tailored to
the preferences of cells recorded in the lateral geniculate
nucleus (magnocellular and parvocellular), primary visual
cortex (simple and complex), and the extrastriate motion area
MT. We found that cells took longer to turn on (to increase their firing rate) than to turn off (to reduce their rate). The latency
difference (onset minus offset) varied from several to tens of
milliseconds across cell type and stimulus class and was correlated
with spontaneous or driven firing rates for most cell classes. The
delay for response onset depended on the nature of the stimulus present
before the preferred stimulus appeared, and may result from persistent
inhibition caused by antipreferred stimuli or from suppression that
followed the offset of the preferred stimulus. The onset delay showed
three distinct types of dependence on the temporal sequence of stimuli
across classes of cells, implying that suppression may accumulate or
wear off with time. Onset latency is generally longer, can be more
variable, and has marked stimulus dependence compared with offset
latency. This suggests an important role for offset latency in
assessing the speed of information transmission in the visual system
and raises the possibility that signal offsets provide a timing
reference for visual processing. We discuss the origin of the delay in
onset latency compared with offset latency and consider how it may
limit the utility of certain feedforward circuits.
Key words:
macaque monkey; primary visual cortex; area MT/V5; lateral geniculate nucleus; spike timing; response latency; integration
time; inhibition; spontaneous activity; temporal dynamics
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INTRODUCTION |
In the earliest studies of neuronal
response in the visual system, ON and OFF responses to light were
recognized because light onset and offset both produced striking
transient bursts of action potentials (Adrian and Matthews, 1927 ). If
it had been otherwise, if cells had produced ON responses only and did
not adapt so much, then perhaps response offsets would have received
more attention in the last 75 years. If asked whether neurons in the
visual system turn on or turn off sooner after a scene change, one
might guess the former because a brief pulse of light causes a response
that rises rapidly and decays slowly, outlasting the flash (Adrian and
Matthews, 1927 ; Levick, 1973 ) or one might guess the latter because of
the integration time required for a spiking neuron to reach threshold
(Lapicque, 1907 ). The literature since then provides an ample account
of the timing of response onsets (for review, see Nowak and Bullier,
1997 ) but is surprisingly quiet about response offset.
Here we study the latency of response onset and offset in several areas
of the visual system because doing so offers a chance to interpret
integration strategies in each area in the context of what is known
about the other areas. To make this comparison across visual areas and
cell classes, we attempt to generalize the notion of preferred,
antipreferred, and null (or neutral) stimuli across three levels in the
visual system. We optimized stimuli for the center-surround receptive
fields (Barlow, 1953 ; Kuffler, 1953 ) of cells in the dorsal lateral
geniculate nucleus (Hubel and Wiesel, 1961 ), for the spatial
phase, orientation, and direction-selective (DS) cells in the primary
visual cortex (V1) (Hubel and Wiesel, 1959 ), and for the DS cells of
the extrastriate motion area MT/V5 (Zeki, 1974 ; Maunsell and Van Essen,
1983 ; Albright et al., 1984 ; Movshon et al., 1985 ). Sinusoidal gratings
confined to the classical receptive field adequately activate all of
these cell types (Enroth-Cugell and Robson, 1966 ; Movshon et al.,
1978 ), but here we present them in rapid, random succession with their canonical opposites to facilitate the precise estimation of timing.
In the retina and LGN, there is probably no strong opponency between
the ON and OFF pathways (Casagrande and Norton, 1991 ; Schiller, 1992 ).
In V1, simple cells may receive push-pull feedforward inputs (Palmer
and Davis, 1981 ; Heggelund, 1986 ; Ferster, 1988 ; Tolhurst and Dean,
1990 ; Hirsch et al., 1998 ; Troyer et al., 1998 ) (for review, see
Ferster and Miller, 2000 ) or a less spatially specific inhibition
(Borg-Graham et al., 1998 ; Troyer et al., 1998 ; Wielaard et al., 2001 ).
Thus, rapid switching between preferred and counterphase stimuli would
engage both pathways. Opponent circuits may operate in
direction-selective cells (Sutherland, 1961 ; Barlow and Hill, 1963 ;
Adelson and Bergen, 1985 ) (but see, Raymond and Braddick, 1996 ), but
perhaps are different in V1 and MT (Qian and Andersen, 1994 ; Heeger et
al., 1999 ).
For all cell types that we studied, response onset came later than
response offset. We discuss how much of the onset delay is caused by
neuronal integration time (defined to be the time from initial
depolarization to spike threshold, Nowak and Bullier, 1997 ), how much
can be attributed to inhibition, and how much is inherited with inputs
from lower areas.
Some of these results have been published previously in abstract form
(Bair et al., 2001 ).
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MATERIALS AND METHODS |
Electrophysiology. We recorded extracellularly from
single units in the dorsal LGN, primary visual cortex, and area MT of anesthetized, paralyzed, macaque monkeys (Macaca
fascicularis). LGN, V1, and MT data were collected from 3, 16, and
13 monkeys, respectively. The numbers of animals for V1 and MT are
large because data for this study was collected sporadically during
experiments performed for other studies.
Detailed methods for this type of recording are available in Carandini
et al. (1997) and O'Keefe and Movshon (1998) . Experiments typically
lasted 4-5 d during which anesthesia and paralysis were maintained
with sufentanil citrate (4-12
µg · kg 1 · hr 1)
and vecuronium bromide (Norcuron; 0.1 mg · kg 1 · hr 1),
respectively, administered in lactated Ringer's solution. Infusion solutions were mixed to 2.5% dextrose concentration to provide adequate nutrition, and infusion rate was adjusted to maintain fluid
balance (~4-8
ml · kg 1 · hr 1).
Artificial respiration with a mixture of O2,
N2O, and CO2 was maintained
with rate adjustments to keep expired PCO2
between 3.8 and 4.0%. Body temperature was maintained near 37°C with
a heating pad. EEG and electrocardiogram were monitored to
ensure proper depth of anesthesia. The pupils were dilated with topical atropine, and the corneas protected with gas-permeable hard contact lenses. We refracted the eyes with supplementary lenses that were chosen to optimize neuronal responses to high spatial frequencies. All
procedures conformed to guidelines of the New York University Animal
Welfare Committee.
Tungsten-in-glass microelectrodes (Merrill and Ainsworth, 1972 ) were
advanced with a hydraulic microdrive downward through a craniotomy of
diameter 9-10 mm. In some experiments, we used a mechanical microdrive
system with quartz-platinum-tungsten microelectrodes (Thomas
Recordings, Marburg, Germany). For V1 recordings, the craniotomy was
typically centered 4 mm posterior to the lunate sulcus and 10 mm
lateral to the midline. For LGN recordings, the craniotomy was centered
7 mm anterior to ear-bar zero and 11 mm lateral to the midline. For MT
recordings, the craniotomy was centered 15 mm lateral to the midline, 4 mm posterior to the lunate sulcus, and the angle of advance was 20°
down and forward in the parasagittal plane. Action potentials were
discriminated using a hardware dual-window time-amplitude discriminator
(Bak, Germantown, MD) and time stamped at a resolution of 0.25 msec.
Electrolytic lesions were made for histological verification and
estimation of cortical layer. V1 neurons were recorded on the operculum
and in the calcarine sulcus (typical receptive field eccentricities were 2-5° and 8-24°, respectively). LGN cells were recorded from magnocellular and parvocellular layers at eccentricities ranging from 1 to 23°. MT cells were recorded at eccentricities ranging from 2 to
33° but typically between 3 and 12°. For each cell whose action
potential waveform was well isolated from the noise, we ran stimuli as
described below.
Visual stimuli. Visual stimuli were generated by custom
software on a CRS 2/2 board (Cambridge Research Systems, Kent, UK) under the control of an Intel 86-based host computer. Stimuli were
presented on a standard cathode ray tube at a resolution of
1024 × 731 pixels and a video frame rate of 100 Hz vertical refresh, with a mean luminance of 33 cd/m2. The display was gamma-corrected
with a lookup table. We used a front surface mirror to bring the
receptive field (RF) of each cell into register with the center of a
video monitor placed between 80 and 180 cm from the animal's eye,
where it subtended between 10 and 22°. The graphics board that
generated our stimulus also generated synchronization pulses that were
time-locked to the start of the first frame of our stimulus. These
pulses were time-stamped and recorded by the same system used for
collecting action potential times.
The RF size was estimated by hand before beginning quantitative
characterization with sinewave gratings. Quantitative estimates of RF
properties were computed from tuning curves resulting from a series of
randomly interleaved stimuli. Responses to drifting sinusoidal stimuli
were quantified with DC (mean firing rate minus the baseline rate for a
mean gray stimulus) and F1 (amplitude of the Fourier component of the
response at the temporal frequency of the stimulus) tuning curves.
For V1 cells, drifting sinusoidal gratings were randomly interleaved
under computer control to obtain response tuning curves first for
orientation, next for spatial frequency, and then for temporal
frequency. Next, we chose the smallest patch of optimized grating that
elicited a response easily distinguishable from the spontaneous rate,
and we alternated between adjusting the vertical and horizontal
position of the patch by hand until the maximal response was obtained.
At these coordinates, circular patches of various diameters were
interleaved to obtain a tuning curve for size. The classical receptive
field (CRF) of the V1 cell was defined to be the smallest circular
patch that gave a response no <95% of the maximum.
Cells were classified as simple or complex on the basis of the
modulation index computed at the optimal spatial frequency (Skottun et
al., 1991 ). For simple cells, the optimal phase of the grating was
subsequently determined from an eight-point tuning curve for static,
contrast modulated gratings. For complex cells and MT cells, we
quantified directionality using the index 1 a/p, where p and a were the
responses to preferred direction (that which gave the highest response)
and the antipreferred direction (opposite to preferred), respectively,
in excess of the spontaneous rate (Maunsell and Van Essen, 1983 ). Cells
were called DS if their directionality was >0.5.
LGN cells were characterized in a manner similar to V1 simple cells
with two exceptions. First, LGN cells were mapped with a white noise
stimulus in which squares in a 16 × 16 spatial grid were
independently assigned zero or maximum luminance on every video frame
on the basis of a pseudorandom number generator (Reid et al., 1997 ).
The grid was scaled so that two or three boxes of the grid spanned the
center of the LGN RF. A spatial map was computed using
reverse-correlation to determine the location, size, and ON or OFF
character of the RF center and surround. Second, orientation was set to
be vertical (with rightward drift) unless our by-hand characterization
or the white-noise spatial map indicated a significant orientation
bias. Magnocellular and parvocellular cells (hereafter, m-cells and
p-cells) were distinguished using a white-noise stimulus, as described below.
Random sequence stimuli. After the initial characterization
of a cell, we studied response timing using random binary and ternary
stimulus sequences. For the binary sequences, either the preferred
stimulus (P) or the antipreferred stimulus (A) was presented on each
video frame (i.e., every 10 msec). The choice between A and P was
governed by a pseudorandom sequence generated using the ran2
algorithm of Press et al. (1992) . In later experiments, the
randomization was governed by a binary m-sequence (Sutter, 1987 ; Reid
et al., 1997 ). Ternary sequences, which included a null stimulus (N)
were governed by the ran2 algorithm and consisted of the
equiprobable and independent presentation of A, N, or P on each video frame.
For LGN cells, we ran binary sequences with three types of P and A
stimuli: spots, annuli, and gratings. (1) Spots: P was a disk of
maximum or minimum luminance (for ON or OFF cells, respectively) presented on a gray background and confined to the central region of
the RF determined from the reverse-correlation map. A was the disk of
opposite contrast to P. (2) Annuli: P was an annulus of maximum or
minimum luminance that was confined to the surround determined from the
spatial reverse-correlation, and A was the annulus of opposite
luminance. (3) Gratings: P was a centered, circular patch of sinusoidal
grating having optimal spatial period and phase and covering the RF
center and surround. A was counterphase to P, i.e., it had 180°
opposite phase.
For V1 simple cells, we used two sets of P and A stimuli. For both
sets, P was the optimal sinusoidal grating confined to the CRF (see
above), and A was either counterphase or orthogonally oriented to P. We
will refer to these two stimuli as the phase and orientation stimuli,
respectively. For V1 complex DS cells and for MT cells, P and A were
optimal gratings that differed in their direction of movement: P moved
in the preferred direction, and A moved in the opposite direction. The
amount of movement between video frames was typically 90° of phase
but was set to 45° if the cell responded poorly to 90° movements.
LGN m- and p-cells were distinguished on the basis of the presence of
contrast gain control (of the type described by Shapley and Victor,
1978 ) in m-cells and its absence in p-cells (Benardete et al., 1992 ;
Lee et al., 1994 ; Lee, 1996 ; Benardete and Kaplan, 1997 , 1999 ; Levitt
et al., 2001 ). Classification was based on the time-domain kernels
(Benardete and Kaplan, 1997 , 1999 ) computed for the binary counterphase
stimulus and always agreed with our assessment on the basis of contrast
sensitivity, transience, temporal resolution, and estimates of the
laminar location of the recording.
Data analysis. For all analyses, the times of action
potentials were expressed in milliseconds relative to the time at which the raster scan of the video display illuminated the center of the
screen, where each neuronal receptive field had been centered. We
determined the timing of our stimulus relative to the video synchronization pulses by plotting the luminance at the center of the
screen (measured with a photometer) on an oscilloscope that was
triggered by the video synchronization pulses. We then measured the
timing of our data collection system by passing the video
synchronization pulses through the same amplifiers and spike discrimination hardware that we used to detect action potentials. These
two measurements allowed us to compensate all spike times for the
delays associated with stimulus generation and data collection.
We estimated the mean instantaneous firing rate (i.e., the peristimulus
time histogram at the millisecond resolution) associated with
particular stimulus patterns that occurred at random in our binary and
ternary sequences. For example, the sequence AP indicates 30 msec
(three video frames) of the antipreferred stimulus followed by 20 msec
(two frames) of the preferred stimulus. The time of occurrence of the
transition, defined to be the time of appearance of the first frame of
P, was taken as the reference time (t = 0). Spike train
segments for each occurrence of a stimulus pattern were aligned to the
reference time and averaged to estimate the mean instantaneous firing
rate associated with that pattern. Average responses to stimulus
transitions were always compared with the response for a reference
pattern (the reference response) that had no transition. For example,
the reference stimulus pattern for AP was 50 msec (five frames) of A. Figure 1 shows examples of responses to
stimulus transitions and reference responses. Traces were smoothed with
a Gaussian of SD 1 msec before further analysis.

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Figure 1.
The estimation and comparison of response timing
for turning on and turning off are demonstrated for an LGN p-cell.
Top, Stimulus icons show preferred and antipreferred
stimuli, P and A, one of which was chosen randomly for presentation
every 10 msec. A, Average firing rate versus time is
plotted for two 50 msec stimulus sequences, which are depicted below
the abscissa. Solid lines indicate the stimulus and
response for a transition from A to P (i.e., a change from the left to
right stimulus icon, top), whereas dashed
lines indicate the reference stimulus, 50 msec of A, and its
response. Time 0 is when the transition to P occurred. Response latency
was ~30 msec; therefore, the first and last 20 msec of the response
traces are averages of responses to a random set of sequences that
occurred before and after the 50 msec trigger sequences (see
arrow and label ongoing random sequence)
and should not be confused with spontaneous firing rate. Epochs of A
were associated with near zero firing rate, and the onset of P caused a
rapid rate increase (solid response curve). Response
curves were based on 253 occurrences of the stimulus sequences (see
Materials and Methods). B, Responses of the same cell to
the PA transition (a change from the right to left stimulus icon,
top) are shown in the format of A. Firing
rate was high for P epochs and dropped rapidly after the transition to
A. Response curves were based on 253 occurrences of the stimulus
sequences. C, The difference between the response to the AP transition and to its reference
stimulus (in A, solid minus dotted
line) is plotted here as the thin line. The
analogous difference between the traces in B is plotted
as the thick line. These response difference traces
allow direct comparison of the timing of the onset of signals evoked by
the AP and PA stimulus transitions. We defined AP to be
the difference in timing between the onsets of the AP and PA response
(thick bar; see Materials and Methods).
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The response difference trace for a stimulus transition was computed by
subtracting the reference response from the response to the transition.
Response onset latency was determined automatically by finding the
maximum point on the response curve (or on the response difference
curve) and searching backwards in time from the maximum for the first
point that was above 5% of the maximum response. A similar procedure
was used to find response offset latency, except the minimum point and
the 5% drop to minimum were used. We also computed latencies for the
rise (and fall) to 50% and found that our results were not
significantly changed.
Our measure of the timing difference for turning on relative to turning
off was AP, the onset latency for the response
to the AP transition minus the offset latency for the response to the
P-to-A (PA) transition. For ternary sequences, which contained antipreferred and null (in addition to preferred) stimuli, we computed
AP and a comparable measure for the N stimuli,
NP, which we defined as the latency for
turning on from N minus the latency for turning off based on the PA
transition. The PA transition latency was used for the off reference
time for both NP and
AP because it was on average not different
from, yet less variable than, the P-to-N (PN) latency, and it
provided a common reference for both measurements.
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RESULTS |
We measured response timing for 31 cells in the LGN (14 p-cells
and 17 m-cells), 63 cells in V1 (18 simple, 11 complex non-DS, 34 complex DS), and 39 DS cells in MT. All cells were tested with random,
binary sequences of visual stimuli in which either the preferred
stimulus P or the antipreferred stimulus A appeared every 10 msec. We
will begin by demonstrating the computation of our response timing
measurements for the binary stimulus and will summarize these
measurements across cell types. For each cell type, we will show how
timing correlated with spontaneous and evoked firing rates. We will
then assess the influence of antipreferred stimuli on response timing
by comparing them with N, which are hypothetically neutral. Finally, we
show that timing is influenced in different ways across areas and cell
types by the temporal history of the stimulus.
Latency for response onsets and offsets
Figure 1 demonstrates our method for measuring onset and offset
latency for an LGN p-cell that was tested with the phase stimulus. Every 10 msec, either the preferred stimulus P (the optimal sinusoidal grating) or the antipreferred stimulus A (the grating opposite in
phase) was presented (Fig. 1, Top, right and
left icons). We estimated the onset latency by comparing the
response for the A-to-P (AP) transition with that for a reference
stimulus that contained no transition to P. The AP transition was
defined to be 30 msec of A followed by 20 msec of P, and the reference
stimulus, lacking the transition, was 50 msec of A (Fig.
1A, solid and dashed lines, respectively;
below abscissa). Because these 50 msec stimulus sequences appeared in
an ongoing random sequence, the stimuli preceding and after them were
random. In Figure 1A, the time at which the response
to the AP transition (solid line) turns upward (open
arrow) from the reference response (dashed line) is the onset latency. The latency is ~27 msec relative to the stimulus transition, which occurs at time 0. The upturn in the reference trace
(dashed line) near 45 msec results from responses to random sequences that followed the trigger sequence and does not influence our
timing measurements. We estimated the offset latency in a similar
manner from the response to the P-to-A (PA) transition (30 msec of P
followed by 20 msec of A) and its reference stimulus (50 msec of P)
(Fig. 1B). The response to the PA transition diverges from the reference response ~25 msec after the stimulus transition (B, open arrow). To facilitate the comparison of
onset and offset latencies, we plotted the AP response minus its
reference response together with the PA response minus its reference.
These response difference plots (Fig. 1C) make it apparent
that the response decrease for the PA transition (thick
line) occurred before the response increase for the AP transition
(thin line) for this neuron.
Figure 2 shows response difference plots
for cells from LGN, V1, and MT that were tested with random, binary
sequences of P and A stimuli that were suited to the properties of the
cells on the basis of initial characterization with sinusoidal stimuli. The phase stimulus, presented to LGN p- and m-cells and to V1 simple
cells (A-C, respectively), covered the classical center and
surround of the LGN RF and was restricted to the CRF for V1 cells. V1
simple cells were also tested with the orientation stimulus (D), which differed from the phase stimulus only by a
90° rotation of the antipreferred sinusoid. V1 complex DS cells
(E) and MT cells (F) were tested
with the direction stimulus (icon above E), which was an
optimally oriented grating that moved in either the preferred or
opposite direction every 10 msec. For each example in Figure 2, the
response difference trace for the PA transition (thick
lines) dropped from zero before the trace for the AP transition rose (thin lines). We quantified the offset and onset times
for each cell from the respective response difference plots as the time
to reach 5% of the maximum excursion from zero (see Materials and
Methods).

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Figure 2.
Response decreases occurred sooner than response
increases when switching between P and A. For five classes of neurons,
response difference plots (defined in Fig. 1) for PA and AP transitions
(thick and thin lines, respectively) are
shown for example cells responding to binary random sequences of
optimized sinusoidal grating stimuli. A, Difference
plots for an LGN p-cell responding to the phase stimulus (transitions
between opposite phases, icons, top of
left column) show that the PA response occurred before
the AP response. B, For an LGN m-cell responding to the
phase stimulus, a smaller timing asymmetry is present. The sign
reversal at ~40 msec resulted from the combination of the transient
nature of the m-cell response and the chance transitions that followed
the reference stimuli (e.g., 50 msec of A was sometimes followed by P
and vice versa). C, Difference plots for a V1 simple
cell responding to the phase stimulus show a timing asymmetry larger
than that observed for the LGN cells in A and
B. D, Responses of a V1 cell to
transitions between orthogonal orientations (icons in
center) also show a large timing asymmetry. Responses of
a V1 complex DS cell (E) and an MT cell
(F) to transitions between opposite directions of
motion (icons, top of right
column) show a timing asymmetry as well.
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Onset latency is plotted against offset latency for all cells in Figure
3. The points fell mainly above the
diagonal line of equality, indicating that offset time was
less than onset time. For each cell class, onset and offset times were
significantly correlated (Pearson's r ranged from 0.60 to
0.97, p < 0.004, for each cell class). Our median LGN
onset latencies (24 and 34 msec for m- and p-cells, respectively) fell
within the range of medians reported by Maunsell et al. (1999) , and our
minimum onset latency (20 msec) was larger than theirs (16-18 msec).
In V1, our shortest onset latencies (26-30 msec) were consistent with
the shortest reported in the literature (Bartlett and Doty, 1974 ;
Maunsell and Gibson, 1992 ; Nowak et al., 1995 ). For MT, however, 5 of
39 cells responded before 35 msec, which was faster than most published minimum latencies for MT (Raiguel et al., 1989 , 1999 ; Lagae et al.,
1993 ; Schmolesky et al., 1998 ; Raiguel et al., 1989 , 1999 ; Lisberger and Movshon, 1999 ) but was consistent with a report of
responses from 30 to 40 msec in area MST (Kawano et al., 1994 ). Overall, our mean onset latencies (Table
1) were smaller than most published mean
values but were not inconsistent with published minimum latencies. This
was expected for our rapidly changing stimulus because visual responses
are known to be faster for rapid and broadband temporal stimuli
(Shapley and Victor, 1978 ; Sestokas and Lehmkuhle, 1986 ; Movshon et
al., 1990 ; Reid et al., 1992 ; Lagae et al., 1993 ; Kawano et al.,
1994 ; Bair et al., 1997 ; Lisberger and Movshon, 1999 ).

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Figure 3.
A comparison of onset and offset latencies across
cell types and stimulus categories. The latency of the response to the
transition from antipreferred to preferred (onset
latency) is plotted against the latency of the response to the
opposite stimulus transition (preferred to antipreferred, offset
latency). Nearly all points fell above the diagonal line of
equality, indicating that onset latency is longer than offset latency.
The mean onset and offset latencies for each cell class and stimulus
type are reported in Table 1.
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Our offset latencies, being consistently smaller than onset latencies,
were smaller than the minimum latency values reported in nearly all
previous extracellular studies of these visual areas in the macaque
monkey. Specifically, our earliest offset latencies were between 15 and
20 msec in the LGN and between 20 and 25 msec in V1 and MT (Fig. 3,
horizontal axis; see Table 1 for mean values). This is not
inconsistent with physical limitations of the circuitry, and, given
early responses in the LGN, is consistent with there being only several
milliseconds of delay from LGN to cortex (Reid and Alonso, 1995 ,
reported 1-4.5 msec for cat) and a 1-2 msec conduction delay from V1
to MT (Movshon and Newsome, 1996 ). Thus, offset latencies for our
dynamic stimuli indicate that the flow of information through visual
cortex can be faster than revealed by most extracellular studies of
onset latency.
To quantify the difference between onset and offset latency for each
cell, we defined AP (Fig. 1C,
thick bar) to be onset time minus offset time. Measurements
of AP across cell types and stimuli are
summarized in Figure 4. For the LGN, in
addition to the sinusoidal stimuli just described, cells were also
tested with a constant-luminance disk in the center of the RF
(A) and an annulus that omitted the center
(B). The average value of AP was significantly smaller for m-cells than for p-cells when the stimulus was limited to the center of the RF (Fig.
4A, compare white with gray
histograms; arrows show means; see legend for statistics).
For surround stimulation, the distributions of
AP for p- and m-cells were statistically
indistinguishable (B). Results for the
phase stimulus (C) were well matched to those for the center disk. ON and OFF center LGN cells showed no differences in
timing measurements and were grouped together. Compared with the LGN,
V1 simple cells had larger and more varied values of AP. This was true for responses to the phase
stimulus (D) and the orientation stimulus
(E). Complex DS cells in V1 (F),
however, had an average AP that was
significantly less than that for simple cells and was more similar to
the distribution for the LGN. The distribution of
AP for MT cells (G) was
similar to that for V1 complex DS cells.

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Figure 4.
The distribution of the timing asymmetry,
AP, across cell types and stimulus categories.
A, LGN p-cells (gray bars,
n = 13) and m-cells (white bars,
n = 12) had AP > 0 when driven
by a disk in the RF center. The mean for p-cells, 8.9 msec
(black arrow), was significantly greater than that for
m-cells, 4.8 msec (white arrow; t test,
p = 0.017). B, When tested with an
annulus in the RF surround, p- and m-cells had similar values of
AP (means, 7.8 and 7.2 msec, respectively).
Arrows showing means overlap. C, For the
phase stimulus, p-cells (n = 14) had a
significantly larger AP than m-cells
(n = 17; means, 10.1 and 6.5 msec; t
test, p = 0.007). Black and
white arrows show means for p- and m-cells,
respectively. D, V1 simple cells tested with the phase
stimulus had more varied and larger AP values on average
(mean, 22 msec; n = 12) than AP for
the LGN. E, The distribution of AP for V1
cells tested with the orientation stimulus was similar (mean, 22 msec;
n = 14) to that for the phase stimulus.
F, V1 complex DS cells (n = 32)
tested with the direction stimulus had on average a smaller (9.5 msec)
and less scattered value of AP than simple cells tested
with static gratings. G, MT cells (n = 34) tested with the direction stimulus had a distribution of
AP similar to that for V1 complex DS cells (mean, 10.9 msec).
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Response latencies in V1 are known to be widely distributed, and Figure
4, D and E, shows that
AP was widely distributed for V1 simple cells.
Do cells with long latencies have large AP? For LGN p-cells and V1 simple cells, we found a positive correlation between AP and onset latency
(r = 0.70, p = 0.006, n = 14 for LGN p-cells; r = 0.88, p = 0.0004, n = 11 for V1 simple cells tested with the
phase stimulus; r = 0.87, p = 0.00001, n = 16 for simple cells tested with the orientation
stimulus). There was a weak correlation between
AP and onset latency for area MT
(r = 0.36; p = 0.02; n = 39), but no significant correlation for LGN m-cells
(r = 0.17; p = 0.51; n = 17) or for complex DS cells in V1 (r = 0.22;
p = 0.22; n = 34). Thus, the
correlation between AP and onset latency was
strongest for cell types that had the largest variations in onset
latency, namely LGN p-cells and V1 simple cells. This is apparent in
Figure 3, where the open and filled red circles
and the filled black circles lie farther from the
diagonal line at higher onset latencies.
In summary, for almost all of our cells, responses turned off faster
than they turned on: only rarely was AP less
than zero. Cells with conspicuously long onset latencies tended to have
large AP values, suggesting that the time
required to initiate a response can be substantially longer than the
time required to decrease, or maintain, an ongoing response.
Eleven non-DS complex cells were tested with the orientation stimulus,
but none responded to the fast changes between preferred and
antipreferred stimuli in a manner similar to that of the other cell
types. In particular, their firing rates decreased for both PA and AP
transitions. Results for these cells cannot be compared directly to
those presented here; therefore, complex non-DS cells are not included
in our analysis.
The relationship between AP and firing rate
A linear system would not have a latency asymmetry,
AP > 0, as observed in our data, but an
otherwise linear system with a high threshold for response could. This
is depicted in Figure 5, which shows an
input (A) that is convolved with a rectangular pulse
(data not shown) to yield an output (B) that is
thresholded. The threshold (dashed line) is set high, so the
onset latency, ton, is longer than the
offset latency, toff, and
AP > 0. The spontaneous firing rate of a
neuron is a potential indication of the height of the threshold of the
"system" that drives the output of that neuron, with a low
spontaneous rate indicating a high threshold. We therefore tested for a
correlation between AP and the spontaneous
firing rate, which we computed during the 500 msec epoch that preceded
stimulus onset.

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Figure 5.
A system with a high threshold takes longer to
turn on than to turn off. If the input in A, plotted as
a function of time, is delayed and smoothed by convolution with a
boxcar function, the trace in B results. The delay from
the rise in the input to the rise in the output is equal to that from
the fall in the input to the fall in the output. However, if the system
responds only when the output is above a high threshold (dashed
line), the latency to response onset
(ton) is longer than the latency to
offset (toff) by an amount
approximately equal to the time to rise to threshold. Thus,
AP approximates the integration time of the system in
this simple demonstration.
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A plot of AP against spontaneous rate for five
classes of neurons (Fig. 6A) shows that cells with lower
spontaneous rates tended to have larger AP
values. This was clearest in the LGN, where spontaneous rates were
higher and more varied than in cortex. The histograms in Figure
6B show the distributions of spontaneous rates in LGN, in V1
for simple and complex DS cells, and in MT. It is well established that
spontaneous rate decreases from retina to LGN to cortex (Herz et al.,
1964 ). Because of the low spontaneous firing rates in V1, we were not
surprised to find a lack of correlation between
AP and spontaneous rate. However, as a
population, V1 simple cells were consistent with the trend for LGN
cells, they typically had lower firing rates and higher
AP values than LGN cells (compare red
circles with filled and open circles in Fig. 6A). V1 complex DS cells also alone showed no significant
correlation between spontaneous rate and AP,
but in MT, where spontaneous rates were moderately higher (Fig.
6B, bottom), there was a significant correlation
between AP and spontaneous rate. Correlation
coefficients are shown by black bars in the left column of Figure
6C (see legend for statistical significance). We also
computed the correlation between AP and
stimulus evoked firing rate, which was measured in the 20 msec epoch
after the onset of response to an AP transition. The correlation
coefficients for the evoked rate, shown in the right-hand column of
Figure 6C, were significantly negative for LGN P-cells, V1
simple cells, and MT cells, again showing that lower firing rates were
associated with larger AP values.
The association of low firing rate with large
AP is intuitively appealing because a
mechanism that acts to pull a cell farther from threshold, e.g., by
reducing its average resting potential, would not only decreases the
firing rate but also could delay response onset and advance response
offset, thereby increasing AP. Spontaneous
firing rate reflects a steady-state condition of a cell, but
antipreferred stimuli can momentarily suppress the spontaneous
discharge and could, in effect, increase the distance to threshold.
Therefore, we will now test whether AP
depended on the antipreferred stimulus.
Assessing the influence of the antipreferred stimulus
To test the hypothesis that the antipreferred stimulus contributed
to the delay of response onset, we compared responses to AP transitions
with those to null-to-preferred (NP) transitions. The N was either a
mean gray field or, for DS cells, a static grating, and N can be
thought of as a candidate neutral stimulus for the cell being tested.
Each cell was tested with a random, ternary sequence in which A, N, or
P was presented with equal probability every 10 msec. Average responses
and response difference traces were computed for the NP and PN
transitions by the same methods used for AP and PA transitions, with N
taking the place of A.
Figure
7A-F
shows results for the cell types and stimuli that were examined
previously in Figure 2. Each panel shows the familiar AP and PA
response difference traces and the new NP and PN traces. In Figure
7C, where the traces are labeled, the firing rate of a V1
simple cell decreased for transitions from the preferred stimulus to
the antipreferred (PA) (downward deflected black line) and
to the null stimulus (PN) (downward deflected gray line). The response decrease began at about the same time regardless of
whether A or N was the final stimulus. However, the timing of rate
increases caused by transitions to the preferred stimulus depended on whether the initial stimulus was N or A: the responses to
the NP transition (thick gray line) occurred sooner than the response to the AP transition (thin black line). All six
examples in Figure 7 showed qualitatively similar behavior. The onset
latency after antipreferred stimuli was longer than that after null
stimuli, whereas the offset latency (after preferred) was approximately the same for PA and PN transitions. The latter observation is consistent with the idea that offset latency is determined by the loss
of excitation (or activation of inhibition) caused by removal of the
preferred stimulus. If A has a stronger influence than N, it does not
act rapidly enough to advance the timing of the initial decline in
firing rate when P is removed.

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Figure 6.
Firing rate is negatively correlated with
AP. A, For five classes of neurons,
AP is plotted as a function of spontaneous rate. LGN p-
and m-cells and V1 simple cells were tested with the phase stimulus. V1
complex DS and MT cells were tested with the direction stimulus.
B, The distribution of spontaneous rate varies across
cell class. LGN p- and m-cell data were combined into one histogram
because their distributions were statistically indistinguishable
(t test for mean, p = 0.34;
F test for variance, p = 0.89). LGN
cells had high and varied spontaneous rates compared with cortical
cells. C, Correlation coefficients computed between
AP and spontaneous rate (left column of
bars) and between AP and evoked rate
(right column) were always negative.
Asterisks indicate statistical significance:
*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01;
***p < 0.001. Evoked firing rate was computed in
the 20 msec period after the onset of response to the AP
transition.
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Figure 7.
The response to a preferred stimulus is delayed
more when it follows an antipreferred stimulus than when it follows a
null stimulus. A-F, For six example cells, black
lines show response difference traces for PA and AP
transitions (medium and thin lines,
respectively), and gray lines show response differences
for PN and NP transitions (medium and thick
lines, respectively). Cell types (top left
corners) and stimulus categories match those in Figure 2. The
phase stimulus applies to A-C, the orientation stimulus
to D, and the direction stimulus to E and
F. Bars in C indicate the
latency of the NP (gray bar) and AP (open
bar) responses relative to the PA latency. G,
For all cells tested with ternary stimuli, NP is plotted
against AP. For all cells, NP < AP. When AP was low, NP
was on average near zero. m-Cells and p-cells were grouped together
(filled black circles) because there was no
significant difference between their measurements plotted here (5 p-cells, 2 m-cells).
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We compared the onset timing for NP transitions to AP transitions
quantitatively using NP and
AP, which are schematized on the
right of Figure 7G. Both measurements were made
relative to the offset time (arrow) determined from the PA
transition (see Materials and Methods). As defined earlier,
AP is the onset time for the AP response minus
the offset time, whereas NP is the onset time
for the NP response minus the offset time. The markings in the
schematic in G are similar to those used for the
neuronal data in panel C (horizontal brackets
show timing measurements). If N and A stimuli had equivalent effects on
response timing, then NP = AP. If the null stimulus caused no delay in
response onset relative to offset, then NP = 0.
A cell-by-cell comparison of NP and
AP is provided by the scatterplot in Figure
7G. For all cells, NP < AP, and NP was near
zero for many cells that had small AP
(approximately AP < 10 msec). For
each cell, we computed the ratio
NP: AP to asses the
fraction of the delay, AP, that was present
for the NP transition. We reasoned that a ratio measure would be
justified if, as Figure 5B implies,
AP primarily represents a neuronal integration
time (as defined in Nowak and Bullier, 1997 ) and cannot be negative. Thus, if AP is small because a cell has an
intrinsically short integration time, even a large effect of the null
stimulus cannot cause a large absolute decrease in the already short
integration time. The distributions of the ratio for all cell types
fell mainly between 0 and 1, consistent with the scatter of points in
G. Interestingly, for V1 simple cells, the ratio was
significantly larger for the orientation stimulus (mean 0.71, SD 0.12, n = 5) than it was for the phase stimulus (mean 0.31, SD 0.14, n = 4; t test, p = 0.005). Taking the logarithm of the ratio, or using the absolute timing difference (because ratio measures are sensitive to noise in the denominator), did not destroy the significance of this result. This
suggests that an orthogonal grating is more akin to mean gray than is a
counterphase grating, and that the counterphase grating is the more
appropriate antipreferred stimulus for V1 simple cells. It would be
premature to draw any firm conclusion based on the low number of cells,
but if this difference holds up, it provides quantitative evidence that
afferent inhibition, associated with push-pull circuits (Ferster and
Miller, 2000 ), is stronger than the recurrent inhibition associated
with normalization and believed to underlie cross-orientation
inhibition (Carandini et al., 1997 ).
We have just observed that responses to preferred stimuli were delayed
more by A than by N stimuli, and we also observed that firing rate was
related to response timing (Fig. 6). We
will now examine the relationship between firing rate and delay for N
and A stimuli. The mean firing rate in response to NP and AP
transitions is plotted as a function of time in Figure
8A for a V1 complex DS
cell. The firing rate just before the response to the AP transition (black lines below arrow) was lower than the rate
just before the response to the NP transition (gray
lines below arrow). This was typical across cell types,
but a few counterexamples were present. Figure 8B
shows a counterexample for which the firing rate just before the
response to the AP transition was higher on average than the rate for
the NP transition, yet the NP response still occurred sooner. For each
cell, we computed the firing rates in the 10 msec period before the
onset of response to the NP and AP transitions and subtracted the rate
for the AP case from the rate for the NP case. Figure 8C
shows the ratio of the timing measures,
NP: AP, plotted
against the firing rate difference (N-A) for cells marked by class and
stimulus (for symbol legend, see Fig. 7G). There was a weak
but significant correlation (r = 0.43) between these
measures across all cells and a significant correlation for MT cells
alone (blue triangles, r = 0.66; see legend for statistics). Points for the LGN (black circles)
and V1 simple cells (red circles) contributed to the overall
trend, whereas V1 complex DS cells (green squares)
did not appear to follow the trend.

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Figure 8.
Comparing firing rates for
antipreferred and null stimuli. A, Average responses for
AP (black line) and NP (gray line)
transitions and for reference stimuli (dashed lines of
corresponding color; see Fig. 1A for stimulus
timing). Before the response to the preferred stimulus, the rate
associated with N (gray lines below
arrow) is higher than that associated with A
(black lines below arrow). This trend
held for 31 of 34 cells tested with the ternary, direction stimulus.
Responses include at least 225 occurrences of each pattern.
B, Format like A, but for one of three DS
cells that had a higher firing rate before the AP response transition
(black lines) than before the NP transition
(gray lines). Responses include at least 450 occurrences of each pattern. C, The ratio
NP: AP is plotted against the difference
between null and antipreferred firing rates (calculated in the 10 msec
epoch before the response to the transition) for LGN
(filled circles), V1 simple cells (red
circles) tested with phase (filled) and
orientation (open) stimuli, V1 complex DS cells
(green squares), and MT cells (blue
triangles). There was a significant correlation across the
combined data sets (r = 0.49;
p = 0.0003; n = 50) and for the
MT cells alone (r = 66; p = 0.001; n = 20). None of the V1 data sets had
significant correlations by themselves. For the LGN,
r = 0.60 (p = 0.15;
n = 7).
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In summary, for the ternary sequences, antipreferred stimuli suppressed
firing rate and delayed the onset of firing more than did null stimuli
that were randomly interleaved with them. There was a mild tendency for
cells with larger differences in firing rate to have larger timing
differences in response to N and A stimuli by our ratio measure. It is
unlikely that the change in firing rate caused the change in timing,
because if this were so, the scatter of points in Figure 8C
should go through unity for a rate difference of zero, but it did not.
These results suggest that the antipreferred stimulus, and not just the
lack of the preferred stimulus, contributed to the delay and that the
magnitude of the delay may provide information beyond that carried by
spike rate to distinguish the effects of various antipreferred and null stimuli.
How the AP delay depends on antipreferred duration
We have seen that the response to the onset of a preferred
stimulus was delayed when that onset followed an antipreferred stimulus
that was at least 30 msec in duration. If the response was
delayed because of suppression caused by the antipreferred pulse, then changing the duration of the antipreferred pulse might reveal the time course of the suppressive signal. Two scenarios are
schematized in Figure 9, where panel
A shows four stimulus sequences with antipreferred pulses
(plotted downward) of various lengths. Panel B shows the
time course of a hypothetical suppressive signal that simply integrates
over the epoch of the A pulse. Traces are aligned to the AP stimulus
transition (open arrow), so the longest duration A pulse
(thick line in A) has created the strongest suppression (thick line in B) when the stimulus
is about to change back to preferred. Alternatively, if a transient
suppressive signal was associated with the onset of the antipreferred
stimulus, a longer antipreferred epoch would result in weaker
suppression (Fig. 9C, thick line), and a shorter A epoch
could cause stronger suppression (thin lines in A
and C). We examined the time course of suppression by
measuring responses that followed antipreferred epochs of various
lengths. In our stimulus, the number of times that a sequence occurred
declined exponentially with length; therefore, we limited our analysis
to relatively short sequences for which timing could be measured
accurately.

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Figure 9.
Two conceptual models of suppression activated
during an antipreferred pulse make opposite predictions.
A, Four stimulus sequences with various duration A
pulses are aligned to the AP transition (open arrow).
Thicker traces show stimuli with longer A pulses.
Stimulus traces are offset vertically for clarity here, but traces in
B and C have no vertical offset.
B, The time course of suppression that resulted from a
sustained integration of the A pulses is plotted with
lines of the same thickness used for the
stimuli in A. The stimuli were convolved with the
gray step function, which models suppression that
accumulates over time. The suppression was larger for longer A pulses
(downward indicates stronger suppression). C, When the
stimuli were convolved with a fast, transient function
(gray line), suppression for longer A pulses had
decayed more than that for shorter pulses at the time of the AP
transition (right ends of lines). This trend is opposite
to that in B.
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A series of 60 msec stimulus sequences is plotted in Figure
10 (B, gray
inset). The first sequence (thickest line) consists of
an antipreferred epoch of duration TA = 40 msec followed by a preferred epoch of 20 msec. Successively
thinner lines indicate stimuli with successively shorter antipreferred
epochs, i.e., smaller values of TA.
The dashed line is the reference stimulus, which has no
antipreferred pulse. For these sequences, responses of an LGN p-cell to
the phase stimulus are plotted versus time, relative to the AP
transition, in Figure 10A (time scale differs from
stimulus inset). The response traces dropped from the
reference response (dashed line) at times that reflected the
onsets of the antipreferred pulses, but unlike the stimulus traces in
the inset, the responses did not rise at the same time. As
TA became shorter, the response to the
AP transition occurred later, i.e., the thinner lines rise later, as
indicated by the gray arrow. Thus, short, i.e., recently
applied, A pulses were the most effective for delaying response onset
in the LGN, consistent with transient suppression schematized in Figure
9C.

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Figure 10.
Latency depends on the duration of the
antipreferred stimulus, and the dependency shows several trends across
cell classes. A, LGN p-cell average responses for five
stimulus sequences (see stimulus inset below
A) for counterphase stimulus. The response delay
increased (gray arrow) as the antipreferred epoch
was shortened. This trend occurred for all p- and m-cells. Responses
include at least 250 occurrences for each pattern. B,
Responses for this V1 simple cell to the counterphase stimulus showed a
trend opposite to that for LGN: the response delay decreased
(gray arrow) as the antipreferred epoch was
shortened. This was representative of more than half of V1 cells,
whereas others showed a trend similar to that in the LGN. Responses
include at least 250 occurrences for each pattern. C,
Responses for a V1 complex DS cell to the direction stimulus show a
third trend: response latency first increased (shorter
arrow) and then decreased as the antipreferred epoch was
shortened (longer arrow). Responses include at least 188 occurrences for each pattern. This was typical of V1 complex DS cells
and MT cells. D, Responses are shown for six stimuli
(gray inset), which each have 30 msec of P before
the A epoch. The fifth stimulus (thinnest line) is
unchanged from the top panels. As TA
shortens, the response to the AP transition first shifts rightward and
then leftward, consistent with the behavior in C.
Responses include 12, 24, 48, 94, and 192 occurrences for the
thickest to thinnest lines, respectively.
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Some V1 simple cells tested with the phase stimulus behaved like the
example LGN cell just described, whereas others showed a second trend
that is depicted in Figure 10B. For this cell,
responses to the AP transition occurred earlier for sequences with
shorter epochs of antipreferred stimuli (Fig. 10B, gray
arrow). This trend is consistent with suppression that accumulates
over the time scale tested, as depicted in Figure 9B. We
observed similar results for 20 V1 cells tested with the orientation
stimulus. Cells tested with both stimuli behaved similarly, i.e., onset
time either increased as in A or decreased as in
B for both.
We observed a third trend for DS cells tested with the direction
stimulus in V1 and MT. This is exemplified by data from a V1 complex DS
cell in Figure 10C. As TA
decreased from 40 to 30 msec, the response latency increased
(short gray arrow), but further reduction of
TA caused a decrease in latency
(long gray arrow). The response for
TA = 10 msec was shifted abruptly to
the left (thin line).
For each cell, we computed the onset latency of the average response
for TA = 40 msec and used this as a
reference time. Onset latencies for TA = 30, 20, and 10 msec were expressed relative to the reference time.
These data are plotted in Figure 11 for each cell that provided clear response onsets for all four
TA values. For the LGN, response
latency increased at shorter TA for
almost every cell that we studied, and the increase was greater on
average for m-cells (black lines) than for p-cells (Fig.
11A, gray lines) (see legend for statistics). The
average change in onset latency for m- and p-cells is plotted in the
inset at the bottom of A. For V1 simple cells
tested with the phase stimulus, the results varied widely across cells
(Fig. 11B). For shorter A pulses, onset latency
increased for some cells but decreased for others. The thick
line shows data for the example in Figure 10B.
No average across cells is shown because it would not reflect the
diversity found in V1 simple cells. Results for simple cells tested
with the orientation stimulus showed a similar diversity (C). Complex DS cells in V1 and cells in MT that were
tested with the direction stimulus showed behavior similar to each
other (Fig. 11D) and were less diverse than V1 simple
cells. There was an initial increase followed by a larger decrease in
latency as TA decreased from 40 to 10 msec. Average changes in latency are plotted in the inset in
D. The data in Figure 11 show that the signals from preferred and antipreferred stimuli do not interact in the same way
across cortical areas and cell types, at least at the time scale of
tens of milliseconds.

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Figure 11.
Summary of duration dependence of
latency across cell classes. Relative latencies for 5% rise-to-peak
are plotted against the duration of the antipreferred stimulus,
TA, that preceded the AP transition. All values are
given relative to the value for TA = 40 msec.
A, Each line emanating from the point
(40,0) shows data for a p-cell (gray lines) or an
m-cell (black lines). For nearly all LGN cells, latency
increased as TA decreased. The average relative latencies
are plotted for p-cells (gray line) and m-cells
(black line) in the inset (error bars
show ±1 SEM). m-cells on average had significantly longer relative
latencies (t test; p < 0.00001;
7.0 > 3.7 msec; TA = 10 msec). Results shown
here are for counterphase stimuli. Cell counts appear in
parentheses. B, Similar data are plotted
for V1 simple cells tested with counterphase stimuli. These plots show
that V1 had more diverse behavior than the LGN. Latency could increase
or decrease as TA decreased. The thick line
corresponds to the example data in Figure 10B for
which the latency decreased with TA. C,
Similar to B, but for V1 simple cells tested with the
orthogonal orientation stimulus. The thick line
here and in B show data collected from the same cell.
D, For V1 complex cells (black lines) and
MT cells (gray lines) tested with the direction
stimulus, response latency first increased and then decreased as
TA was reduced from 40 to 10 msec. The inset
shows the average relative latency for MT cells and V1 complex DS
cells.
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The changes in onset latency with antipreferred pulse duration can be
related back to our estimates of AP reported
in Figure 4. Those results were derived from responses to 50 msec
sequences beginning with 30 msec of A; therefore, they are most
comparable with the results for TA = 30 or 40 msec here. For LGN cells, this implies that
AP for shorter (10-20 msec) antipreferred
pulses would be on average larger than reported in Figure
4C. Interestingly, the larger increase in onset latency for
m-cells compared with p-cells for short A pulses (Fig.
11A) appears to compensate for the shorter
AP value for m-cells shown in Figure
4C. In fact, the average values of
AP computed using the onset time for the TA = 10 msec responses were 12.5 and
12.3 msec for p- and m-cells, respectively (SD 3.1, n = 11 for p-cells, SD 3.0, n = 17 for m-cells). For V1
complex DS cells and MT cells, the change in onset latency from
TA = 30-40 msec to
TA = 10 msec was approximately 10
msec (Fig. 11D), which is equal but opposite to the
mean AP reported in Figure
4F and G. Thus, the early response onset
after a 10 msec pulse of antipreferred motion (Fig. 10C,
thin solid line) occurs very close to the response offset
time computed previously from the PA transition. On average
AP is only ~3 msec for V1 and MT when
computed using the onset time for TA = 10 msec. This suggests that 10 msec of motion reversal is too brief to
activate the mechanism by which the antipreferred stimulus delays
response onset.
Finally, for the stimulus sequences just examined, two factors were
changing at once: the duration, TA, of
A and the duration, TP, of P that
preceded A. A set of control sequences in which TP was held constant at 30 msec are
shown in the gray inset in Figure 10D. The
rightward and then leftward shift in the latency of the AP responses to
these stimuli (Fig. 10D, gray arrows) was similar to that observed in C. The longest stimulus sequence
(100 msec) occurred only 12 times. The infrequent occurrence of the longer sequences made them less useful than the constant length sequences (Fig. 10, top inset) for accurate estimation of
response trends. Nevertheless, the shifts in latency for the longer
sequences were qualitatively similar to those for the shorter sequences for the cell types described here. This is not to say that the sequence
before the antipreferred pulses had no significant effect on responses.
The sequence history affected the responses, but a full account of this
is not attempted here. We simply demonstrate that onset latency showed
history dependence that characterized and differentiated between cell classes.
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DISCUSSION |
We found that nearly all neurons in the LGN, V1, and MT responded
more rapidly to a stimulus transition from preferred to antipreferred
than to the opposite transition. The generality of this observation
might be questioned because our rapidly changing stimulus differs from
commonly used stimuli that flash on for ~1 sec after several seconds
of homogeneous background. Published data for standard stimuli,
however, suggest that AP is positive for cat
cortical neurons (von Baumgarten and Jung, 1952 , their Fig. 3) and
ranges from 3-9 msec for cat LGN cells (Coenen et al., 1972 , their
Table 1; Mastronarde, 1987a , his Table 1; Humphrey and Weller, 1988 ;
Saul and Humphrey, 1990 ). Data of Adrian and Matthews (1927 , their Fig.
5) and of Hartline (1938) suggest that AP is
positive in the early visual systems of other vertebrates as well.
The AP delay is derived from latency
measurements and is therefore expected to be stimulus dependent.
Response latency varies with stimulus parameters in the retina
(Kuffler, 1953 ; Levick, 1973 ), in the visual areas studied here in
monkey (Gawne et al., 1996 ; Lisberger and Movshon, 1999 ; Raiguel et
al., 1999 ), and in human visual cortex (Parker and Salzen, 1977 ; Jones
and Keck, 1978 ). In a separate study, we used slow movement for DS
cells and high spatial frequencies for LGN cells and observed that
AP may increase by 10 msec (our unpublished
observations). Here, we have used optimal spatial frequencies,
high temporal frequencies, and fast motion, which shorten neuronal
integration time (Shapley and Victor, 1978 ; Sestokas and Lehmkuhle,
1986 ; Reid et al., 1992 ; Lisberger and Movshon, 1999 ), to allow
comparison of the lower bounds for AP across
areas. A full account of the variation of AP
across multiple stimulus dimensions and multiple visual areas will be
presented elsewhere.
The offset latencies that we found suggest that information from the
photoreceptors can reach LGN within 15-20 msec and V1 and MT within
20-25 msec. We believe that the rapid, dynamic nature of our stimuli
and the measurement of offset rather than onset latency was responsible
for revealing these short latencies. Response decreases have been
reported to have exceptionally short latencies in visual cortex
(Bartlett and Doty, 1974 , their Fig. 3).
Spontaneous rate
We found an inverse correlation between
AP and spontaneous rate both across and within
areas. For example, V1 simple cells had lower spontaneous rates and
larger AP compared with LGN cells. Within the
LGN and MT, cells with lower rates had higher
AP values on average. Evidence that such a
relationship could depend on resting potential comes from adaptation
studies in area 17. Adaptation decreases spontaneous rate (Vautin and
Berkley, 1977 ), increases onset latency (Saul, 1995 ), and
hyperpolarizes cells (Carandini and Ferster, 1997 ; Sanchez-Vives et
al., 2000 ). Further evidence comes from Azouz and Gray (1999) , who
reported a weak anticorrelation between latency to first evoked spike
and the membrane potential (Vm) before
stimulus onset for single trial data. If part of the variation in
AP across cells reflects differences in
Vm established before the stimulus
begins, AP might be a useful extracellular indicator of changes in neuronal state, e.g., hyperpolarization or
synaptic gain, caused by adaptation or other contextual manipulations. AP and onset latency are not equivalent in
practice because, for example, stimulus contrast affects onset and
offset latency, whereas adaptation affects only onset latency (Saul,
1995 ).
Several studies have shown that neurons with stronger inhibition or
lower spontaneous rates have more specific trigger features, i.e., are
more narrowly tuned (Pettigrew et al., 1968 ; Creutzfeldt and Sakmann,
1969 ; Snodderly and Gur, 1995 ; Carandini and Ferster, 2000 ). Similar
observations were reported for the auditory nerve: cells with high
intensity thresholds have less spontaneous activity (Kiang et al.,
1965 , 1976 ). We tested for a relationship between orientation tuning
bandwidth and AP and found weak correlations for V1 simple cells (r = 0.46; p = 0.02; n = 27) and MT cells (r = 0.32;
p = 0.05; n = 34) but not for complex
DS cells (r = 0.17; p = 0.33;
n = 34).
A versus N stimuli
Do antipreferred stimuli delay response onset? Lisberger and
Movshon (1999) showed that brief pulses of antipreferred motion delayed
responses in MT. Data from Celebrini et al. (1993 , their Figs. 8 and 9)
showed the same effect for flashed orthogonal gratings in awake macaque
V1. We found that, when tested together in ternary sequences, A caused
longer delays than N in LGN, V1, and MT and that firing rate for most
cells was lower for A than for N just before the transition to P. There
were exceptions, however, in which A produced a higher rate and a
longer delay than N. In contrast, onset latency was never longer for NP
than for AP transitions. Changes in timing and firing rate were only
weakly correlated in our comparison of A and N stimuli across cells,
and V1 simple cells showed no significant difference in firing rate but
displayed significant timing differences. Therefore, differential
effects on onset timing may provide useful information that is not
available from firing rate for the quantitative evaluation and ranking
of visual stimuli. To detect differences among candidate antipreferred and null stimuli, it might be critical to interleave them in rapid succession as we have done, because the visual system may adapt and
conceal such differences if stimuli are displayed for a long time or
are shown separately in a binary sequence that includes a potent
preferred stimulus.
The origin of AP
We found similarities and significant differences in
AP across cell classes and will consider below
how they might arise. Several factors probably contribute to
AP. First, spiking neurons share properties
with integrate-and-fire devices and, as evident from intracellular
current injection, their rise times to threshold can range from <1
msec to many tens of milliseconds. Cessation of spiking, however, is
nearly immediate when the input is removed. If the Output in Figure
5B were interpreted as Vm,
it would imply that AP was entirely neuronal
integration time (the time from depolarization to spike, see Nowak and
Bullier, 1997 ). As mentioned above, we have intentionally chosen
stimulus parameters to minimize integration time. Second, because onset
latency depended on the stimulus before the transition to preferred,
perhaps inhibition driven by A delays the rise to threshold. Third, if
signals are directly relayed by feedforward excitatory connections,
AP should accumulate downstream. Thus, part of
AP may be inherited from excitatory inputs.
AP in the LGN
For 30 msec antipreferred pulses, the average
AP for m-cells driven via their center was
significantly smaller than that for any other class of cells that we
studied. m-Cells might have faster integration times than p-cells (5 msec vs ~10 msec) because of increased spatial convergence.
Alternatively, achromatic stimuli may be suboptimal for p-cells,
thereby increasing integration time. Both explanations are consistent
with the lack of difference in AP when m- and
p-cells were driven via their surround, under the assumption that their
surround mechanisms are more similar than their center mechanisms
(Lennie et al., 1991 ; Lennie, 2000 ). Slower retinal axon conduction
speed for p-cells (Mitzdorf and Singer, 1979 ) should not increase
AP because it would delay both onset and
offset equally.
If LGN principle cells relay retinal spikes with near 1:1 transmission,
as observed for some LGN X cells in cat (Cleland et al., 1971 ; Coenen
and Vendrik, 1972 ; Mastronarde 1987b ), then AP
is simply inherited from the retina because retinogeniculate transmission delay is negligible (Wang et al., 1985 ; Mastronarde, 1987b ). However, transmission ratios are often substantially <100%, and cat studies indicate that facilitation of consecutive EPSPs occurs
(Singer et al., 1970 ; Mastronarde, 1987b ; Usrey et al., 1998 ) possibly
through simple summation (McIlwain and Creutzfeldt, 1967 ). If the first
retinal spike resulting from an AP transition failed but the subsequent
ones were transmitted, or if the first spike was delayed (Kaplan et
al., 1993 ), the LGN relay would increase AP. A
transient hyperpolarization occurs at light-off in ON LGN cells and
light-on in OFF cells (McIlwain and Creutzfeldt, 1967 ; Coenen and
Vendrik, 1972 ), and this might contribute to the failure of the first
spike, and might account for the longer delay for shorter antipreferred
epochs that we have observed.
Overall, we speculate that part of AP in the
LGN is inherited from the retina, and the rest is caused by failure of
the first EPSP to reach threshold because of a transient, fast-rising
hyperpolarization (Coenen and Vendrik, 1972 ). Such a hyperpolarization
could explain the observed increase in latency for shorter
antipreferred pulses (schematized in Fig. 9C). There is
evidence for inhibition in the geniculate (Singer and
Creutzfeldt, 1970 ; Coenen and Vendrik, 1972 ; Sherman and Koch, 1986 ;
Mastronarde 1987b ), but significant opponent inhibition is absent
because ON and OFF pathways remain separate through the geniculate
(Casagrande and Norton, 1991 ; Schiller, 1992 ). This may account for
AP being much smaller in LGN than in V1 simple
cells. Also, we predict that retinal ganglion cells, having
higher spontaneous and driven firing rates than LGN cells, should have
smaller AP than LGN cells, in keeping with the
observed anticorrelation between firing rate and
AP.
AP in V1 simple cells
AP was significantly larger for simple
cells than for other cell types. The mean value, 22 msec, was 12 msec
longer than that for p-cells responding to similar stimuli. Thus,
<50% of AP in most simple cells could be
inherited from the LGN. Spontaneous rate is low in simple cells
relative to retinal and geniculate cells, but it is also low in complex
DS cells, which had AP values more similar to
p-cells. Data from the cat indicates that the integration time for
simple cells is 10 msec, on average. Volgushev et al. (1995)
estimated the time from EPSP arrival to first spike in area 17 for
flashed optimal bar stimuli to be 7.6 msec. Data of Hirsch et al.
(1998) using less optimized stimuli also depict a fast rise in
Vm before the first spike. This is
supported by estimates of neuronal integration time from
spike-triggered averages of Vm
in vivo (Azouz and Gray, 1999 ) and in vitro
(Nowak et al., 1997 ). Carandini et al. (1996) estimated integration
time to range from 14 msec for sinusoidal current injection to 3 msec
for broadband current injection. Furthermore, spike precision in
striate and extrastriate areas is consistent with integration times of
only a few milliseconds (Maunsell and Gibson, 1992 ; Bair and Koch, 1996 ; Marv álek et al., 1997 ). It is therefore not possible to account for the large AP values of many
simple cells on the basis of a combination of the
AP from the geniculate and the neuronal
integration time of the recorded cell.
Intracellular studies of cat simple cells have shown that
hyperpolarization follows the removal of an excitatory stimulus (Creutzfeldt and Ito, 1968 ) and that this is likely to result from
inhibition (Ferster, 1988 ; Borg-Graham et al., 1998 ; Hirsch et al.,
1998 ; Ferster and Miller, 2000 ). When GABA-mediated inhibition on
simple cells was blocked, strong transient responses appeared at the
offset of the preferred stimulus (Sillito, 1975 ; Eysel et al., 1998 ),
suggesting that potent inhibition normally occurs at this time. We
therefore suspect that inhibition associated with the antipreferred
stimulus delays the onset of the rise to threshold in simple cells. If
so, there may be at least two mechanisms by which the inhibition arises
to account for the variation of time dependence of the onset latency.
An inhibition that adapts could account for cells that show increased
delay for shorter A epochs, whereas an inhibition that integrates
slowly could account for the increased delay for longer A epochs.
As mentioned above, it is possible that part of
AP is inherited from the LGN, but a push-pull
arrangement of inputs could prevent this. For instance, when a spot of
light turns off and then on in an ON region of a V1 simple RF, the
simple cell waits 10 msec longer for signals from an ON p-cell than it
does for the loss of signal from an OFF p-cell. Thus, the first signal to the simple cell could be the removal of inhibition that could initiate the integration to threshold without delay. For this to be
practical, inhibitory neurons would have to be fast, which they are
(Agmon and Connors, 1992 ; Swadlow, 1995 ; Tamás et al., 1997 ;
Porter et al., 2001 ), and must integrate inputs from many cells, which
appears likely (Freund et al., 1985 ; Swadlow, 1995 ), so that real OFF
signals are not confounded with long interspike intervals (Levick,
1973 ). Thus, one advantage to receiving inhibitory and excitatory
inputs to the same receptive field location might be to cancel the
AP timing asymmetry, which for suboptimal
stimuli may be substantially longer than the 5-10 msec reported here.
AP in DS cells
The distributions of AP for complex DS
cells and MT cells were similar (means were 10 and 11 msec,
respectively) and resembled those for the LGN more than those for
simple cells. If AP resulted purely from
integration to threshold in the recorded cell, and if V1 cells drove MT
cells in a direct manner (Movshon and Newsome, 1996 ),
AP would be larger in MT than in V1 and
response onset would occur later in MT. Neither of these conditions
held for our data: MT average onset and offset were ~1-2 msec longer
than V1 (Table 1). One possibility is that AP
in MT is inherited completely from its V1 inputs. Rapid transmission
time from V1 to MT (Movshon and Newsome, 1996 ) could explain why we
observed no significant latency difference, and spatial convergence
could account for an integration time in MT that was closer to one msec than ten. The large axon diameter from V1 to MT (Rockland, 1995 ) certainly suggests that rapid transmission is critical in this pathway.
Alternatively, a push-pull circuit could account for the absence of
increase in AP from V1 to MT, allowing cells
in both areas to have similar neuronal integration times.
For DS cells, we observed an interesting trend in onset latency as a
function of antipreferred duration. As A duration decreased, a reversal
in latency occurred: responses after 10 msec of A came sooner than
those after 40 msec of A (Fig. 10C). Perhaps a transient suppression is activated (as depicted in Fig. 9C) for longer
A pulses, but the 10 msec pulse is simply not long enough to activate the suppressive mechanism (i.e., implying that the thinnest
line in Fig. 9C would not make its downward
deflection). If this trend is a signature of the interaction of
opponent directional signals, it is surprising that it is similar in V1
and MT in light of evidence that opponency is stronger in MT than in V1
(Qian and Andersen, 1994 ; Heeger et al., 1999 ). We do not yet know the
mechanisms behind this trend, or the trends for LGN and V1, but believe
that studying them may reveal important differences in circuits and intrinsic neuronal properties across visual areas.
Response offset: the first sign of change
Response latency is usually calculated for increases in firing
rate (Raiguel et al., 1989 ; Maunsell and Gibson, 1992 ; Nowak et al.,
1995 ; Nowak and Bullier, 1997 ; Schmolesky et al., 1998 ; Maunsell et
al., 1999 ; Raiguel et al., 1999 ), but our results demonstrate
advantages of measuring latency for rate decreases. Not only is offset
latency generally shorter than onset latency, but it may also be less
variable. For V1 simple cells, which had large
AP, offset latency was significantly less
variable across cells (SD 9 msec compared with 18 msec, F test,
p = 0.01, n = 16, orientation
stimulus). Saul (1995) showed that onset timing in simple cells was
affected by adaptation, whereas offset timing was not. There is also
evidence that offset latency is more consistent than onset latency in
the somatosensory system (Ahissar et al., 2000 ). In other experiments,
we found that offset latency changed significantly more than onset
latency in the LGN when spatial frequency was varied and in cortical DS
cells when stimulus velocity was varied. Together, these observations
indicate that offset latency is less malleable, it lacks much of the
dependency that onset latency has on the previous state of the cell and
network, and could provide a reliable estimate of the minimal latency
from a change in the peripheral stimulus to a change in output of the recorded cell. The use of response onset, which varies greatly with
stimulus parameters and the previous state of the neuron, may be partly
responsible for large discrepancies between latency measurements in V1
(for review, see Nowak and Bullier, 1997 ). For very transient
responses, however, offset latency may be difficult to measure.
Alternatively, latency to an increase in an already suprathreshold
response should have similar properties to offset latency.
Offset latency may be more than just a useful tool for studying visual
processing. The earliest cortical signals to indicate a change in the
visual scene will arise in neurons that lose their preferred stimulus
when the scene changes. Therefore, we propose that the offset of the
responses of strongly driven cells to the previous scene acts as a
reference signal for the visual system to interpret the waves of action
potentials that follow a sudden scene change. The change may be induced
by a sudden change in the environment or an eye movement. Response
onset is known to carry information about stimulus features in vision
(Gawne et al., 1996 ) and audition (Middlebrooks et al., 1994 ), and
making use of this information is aided by a temporal reference
(Hopfield, 1995 ; Gautrais and Thorpe, 1998 ).
 |
FOOTNOTES |
Received Aug. 17, 2001; revised Dec. 26, 2001; accepted Jan. 23, 2002.
This work was supported by National Institutes of Health Grant EY02017.
Adam Kohn gave us comments on this manuscript, and he and Najib Majaj
provided useful discussion and assisted with data collection. Hysell
Oviedo and Alex Reyes provided insight from in vitro
data, and Suzanne Fenstemaker provided assistance with histology.
Correspondence should be addressed to Wyeth Bair, Center for Neural
Science, New York University, 4 Washington Place, Room 809, New York,
NY 10003. E-mail: wyeth{at}cns.nyu.edu.
 |
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