1. Spatiotemporal Response Properties of Optic-Flow Processing Neurons
- Author
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Weber, Franz, Machens, Christian K., and Borst, Alexander
- Subjects
- *
NEURONS , *CONDITIONED response , *VISUAL evoked response , *SPATIAL ability , *OPTIC nerve , *HUMAN information processing , *NEUROSCIENCES - Abstract
Summary: A central goal in sensory neuroscience is to fully characterize a neuron''s input-output relation. However, strong nonlinearities in the responses of sensory neurons have made it difficult to develop models that generalize to arbitrary stimuli. Typically, the standard linear-nonlinear models break down when neurons exhibit stimulus-dependent modulations of their gain or selectivity. We studied these issues in optic-flow processing neurons in the fly. We found that the neurons'' receptive fields are fully described by a time-varying vector field that is space-time separable. Increasing the stimulus strength, however, strongly reduces the neurons'' gain and selectivity. To capture these changes in response behavior, we extended the linear-nonlinear model by a biophysically motivated gain and selectivity mechanism. We fit all model parameters directly to the data and show that the model now characterizes the neurons'' input-output relation well over the full range of motion stimuli. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]
- Published
- 2010
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