Skip Navigation


Cerebral Cortex Advance Access originally published online on June 18, 2007
Cerebral Cortex 2008 18(3):516-533; doi:10.1093/cercor/bhm081
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrowOA All Versions of this Article:
18/3/516    most recent
bhm081v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Lu, H. D.
Right arrow Articles by Roe, A. W.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Lu, H. D.
Right arrow Articles by Roe, A. W.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© 2007 The Authors
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Functional Organization of Color Domains in V1 and V2 of Macaque Monkey Revealed by Optical Imaging

Haidong D. Lu and Anna W. Roe

Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

Address correspondence to Haidong D. Lu, Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, 301 Wilson Hall, 111 21st Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37203, USA. Email: haidong.lu{at}vanderbilt.edu.

Areas V1 and V2 of Macaque monkey visual cortex are characterized by unique cytochrome-oxidase (CO)–staining patterns. Initial electrophysiological studies associated CO blobs in V1 with processing of surface properties such as color and brightness and the interblobs with contour information processing. However, many subsequent studies showed controversial results, some supporting this proposal and others failing to find significant functional differences between blobs and interblobs. In this study, we have used optical imaging to map color-selective responses in V1 and V2. In V1, we find striking "blob-like" patterns of color response. Fine alignment of optical maps and CO-stained tissue revealed that color domains in V1 strongly associate with CO blobs. We also find color domains in V1 align along centers of ocular dominance columns. Furthermore, color blobs in V1 have low orientation selectivity and do not overlap with centers of orientation domains. In V2, color domains coincide with thin stripes; orientation-selective domains coincide with thick and pale stripes. We conclude that color and orientation-selective responses are preferentially located in distinct CO compartments in V1 and V2. We propose that the term "blob" encompasses both the concept of "CO blob" and "color domain" in V1.

Key Words: blobs • color • cytochrome-oxidase • optical imaging • thin stripes

Funding to pay the Open Access publication charges for this article was provided by NEI 11744.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.