Dynamic changes in receptive fields induced by cortical reorganization

G. MATO; N. PARGA

Information Theory and the Brain

Cambridge University Press

Año: 2000; p. 122 - 138

In this work we study the dynamical changes undergone by the receptive field of cortex cells after adaptation to stimuli with an artificial scotoma. In the model, the population of neurons in a given layer of a given column of the visual cortex is represented by a single effective unit. A two­ layer architecture is used and the values of the horizontal connections in the output layer are updated in such a way that the redundancy between the activities of different effective units is minimized. This hypothesis is implemented using an algorithm with a simultaneous dynamics of the activities of the effective units and for their effective horizontal connections. The model predicts several experimental facts such as the expansion of the receptive fields and the bias in feature localization experiments. It also allows to make predictions on the filling­in phenomenon and on its relation to the expansion of receptive fields. High order terms in the updating rule of the effective horizontal connections, which we interpret as due to the effect of inhibitory interneurons, are essential to account quantitatively for the experimentalresults.