Dendritic asymmetry cannot account for directional responses of neurons in visual cortex

John C. Anderson; Tom Binzegger; Ora Kahana; Kevan A Martin; Idan Segev

doi:10.1038/12194

Abstract

A simple model was proposed to account for the direction selectivity of neurons in the primary visual cortex, area V1. In this model, the temporal asymmetries in the summation of inhibition and excitation that produce directionality were generated by structural asymmetries in the tangential organization of the basal dendritic tree of cortical neurons. We reconstructed dendritic trees of neurons with known direction preferences and found no correlation between the small biases of a neuron's dendritic morphology and its direction preference. Detailed simulations indicated that even when the electrotonic asymmetries in the dendrites were extreme, as in cortical Meynert cells, the biophysical properties of single neurons could contribute only partially to the directionality of cortical neurons.

Keywords

NeuroscienceDirectionalityCortical neuronsVisual cortexNeuronCortex (anatomy)Cerebral cortexAsymmetryOrientation columnBiologyPhysicsStriate cortex

MeSH Terms

AnimalsCatsComputer SimulationDendritesHaplorhiniModelsNeurologicalNeuronsOrientationVisionBinocularVisual CortexVisual Fields

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Publication Info

Year: 1999
Type: article
Volume: 2
Issue: 9
Pages: 820-824
Citations: 496
Access: Closed

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APA Style

                            
                                
                                    John C. Anderson, 
                                
                                    Tom Binzegger, 
                                
                                    Ora Kahana
                                
                                et al.
                            
                            (1999). 
                            Dendritic asymmetry cannot account for directional responses of neurons in visual cortex. 
                            Nature Neuroscience
                            , 2
                            (9)
                            , 820-824.
                            https://doi.org/10.1038/12194
                        

Identifiers

DOI: 10.1038/12194
PMID: 10461221

Data Quality

Data completeness: 81%