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The Journal of Neuroscience, April 4, 2007, 27(14):3904-3909; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5343-06.2007

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Brief Communications
A New Code for Contrast in the Primate Visual Pathway

Chris Tailby,¹ Samuel G. Solomon,² Neel T. Dhruv,¹ Najib J. Majaj,¹ Sach H. Sokol,¹ and Peter Lennie¹

¹Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, New York 10003, and ²Bosch Institute and School of Medical Sciences, The University of Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia

Correspondence should be addressed to Chris Tailby at the above address. Email: ctailby{at}unimelb.edu.au

We characterize a hitherto undocumented type of neuron present in the regions bordering the principal layers of the macaque lateral geniculate nucleus. Neurons of this type were distinguished by a high and unusually regular maintained discharge that was suppressed by spatiotemporal modulation of luminance or chromaticity within the receptive field. The response to any effective stimulus was a reduction in discharge, reminiscent of the "suppressed-by-contrast" cells of the cat retina. To a counterphase-modulated grating, the response was a phase-insensitive suppression modulated at twice the stimulus frequency, implying a receptive field comprised of multiple mechanisms that generate rectifying responses. This distinctive nonlinearity makes the neurons well suited to computing a measure of contrast energy; such a signal might be important in regulating sensitivity early in visual cortex.

Key words: vision; macaque; lateral geniculate; LGN; retina; receptive field; nonlinear

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Received Dec. 11, 2006; revised March 13, 2007; accepted March 14, 2007.

Correspondence should be addressed to Chris Tailby at the above address. Email: ctailby{at}unimelb.edu.au

This article has been cited by other articles:

				C. Tailby, S. G. Solomon, and P. Lennie Functional Asymmetries in Visual Pathways Carrying S-Cone Signals in Macaque J. Neurosci., April 9, 2008; 28(15): 4078 - 4087. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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