Analytic model for feature maps in the primary visual cortex

A compact analytic model is proposed to describe the combined orientation preference (OP) and ocular dominance (OD) features of simple cells and their layout in the primary visual cortex (V1). This model consists of three parts: (i) an anisotropic Laplacian (AL) operator that represents the local neural sensitivity to the orientation of visual inputs; (ii) a receptive field (RF) operator that models the anisotropic spatial RF that projects to a given V1 cell over scales of a few tenths of a millimeter and combines with the AL operator to give an overall OP operator; and (iii) a map that describes how the parameters of these operators vary approximately periodically across V1. The parameters of the proposed model maximize the neural response at a given OP with an OP tuning curve fitted to experimental results. It is found that the anisotropy of the AL operator does not significantly affect OP selectivity, which is dominated by the RF anisotropy, consistent with Hubel and Wiesel's original conclusions that orientation tuning width of V1 simple cell is inversely related to the elongation of its RF. A simplified OP-OD map is then constructed to describe the approximately periodic OP-OD structure of V1 in a compact form. Specifically, the map is approximated by retaining its dominant spatial Fourier coefficients, which are shown to suffice to reconstruct the overall structure of the OP-OD map. This representation is a suitable form to analyze observed maps compactly and to be used in neural field theory of V1. Application to independently simulated V1 structures shows that observed irregularities in the map correspond to a spread of dominant coefficients in a circle in Fourier space.