Coding in the Visual System
Tamima Hasan
ICO
Visual Coding and the Retinal Receptors
• Each of our senses has specialized receptors that are sensitive to a
particular kind of energy.
• Receptors for vision are sensitive to light.
• Receptors “transduce” (convert) energy into electrochemical
patterns.
Law of specific nerve energies states that activity by a particular
nerve always conveys the same type of information to the brain.
– Example: impulses in one neuron indicate light; impulses in
another neuron indicate sound.
• The brain does not duplicate what we see.
• Which neurons respond, the amount of response, and the timing of
Light enters the eye
Through pupil
Focused by the lens and the
cornea
Onto the surface retina.
Retina is lined with visual receptors
Light from the left side strikes the -
right side of the retina
Light from the right side strikes the -
left side of the retina
Visual receptors send messages to
neurons of bipolar cells
Bipolar cells send messages to
ganglion cells
The axons of ganglion cells join one
another to form the optic nerve to
connect the brain
Amacrine cells are additional cells receive
information from bipolar cells
-Amacrine cells control the ability of the ganglion
cells to respond to shapes,movements, or other
specific aspects of visual stimuli
The optic nerve consists of the axons of ganglion cells that band
together and exit through the back of the eye
Travel to the brain
Central portion of the macula is the fovea and allows for acute and detailed
vision.
– Packed tight with receptors.
– Nearly free of ganglion axons and blood vessels.
Each receptor in the fovea attaches to a single
bipolar cell and a single ganglion cell - midget
ganglion cell.
Each cone in the fovea has a direct line to the
brain which allows the registering of the exact
location of input
In the periphery of the retina, a greater number of
receptors converge into ganglion and bipolar cells
– Detailed vision is less in peripheral vision.
– Allows for the greater perception of much
fainter light in peripheral vision.
• The vertebrate retina consist of two kind of receptors:
– Rods - most abundant in the periphery of the eye and respond to faint
light. (120 million per retina)
– Cones - most abundant in and around the fovea. (6 million per retina)
• Essential for color vision & more useful in bright light.
• Photopigments - chemicals contained by both rods and cones
that release energy when struck by light.
• Photopigments consist of 11-cis-retinal bound to proteins
called opsins.
• Light energy converts 11-cis-retinal quickly into all-trans-
retinal.
• Light is thus absorbed and energy is released that activates
second messengers within the cell.
• The perception of color is dependent upon the wavelength of
the light.
• “Visible” wavelengths are dependent upon the species’
receptors.
• Discrimination among colors depend upon the combination of
responses by different neurons.
• Two major interpretations of color vision include the
following:
Trichromatic theory/Young-Helmholtz theory.
Opponent-process theory.
• Trichromatic theory - Color perception occurs through the
relative rates of response by three kinds of cones.
– Short wavelength, medium-wavelength, long-wavelength.
-Each cone is maximally sensitive to a different set of
wavelengths.
• The opponent-process theory suggests that we perceive
color in terms of paired opposites.
– The brain has a mechanism that perceives color on a
continuum from red to green and another from yellow
to blue.
– A possible mechanism for the theory is that bipolar
cells are excited by one set of wavelengths and
inhibited by another.
Visual coding
• One of the most striking differences between the visual
cortex and its afferent pathways relates to the coding of
surfaces of uniform color.
• While the vast majority of cells in the dorsal lateral
geniculate nucleus (LGN) respond vigorously to diffuse
light of appropriate color, most cortical neurons respond
weakly or not at all to diffuse light.
• A uniform color figure activates cortical cells representing
the borders, but few if any of those representing the interior.
• This is contrary to the intuitive assumption that surface color should be
represented by the neurons whose receptive fields point at the surface,
and that uniformity of color should be represented by uniform
distribution of cortical activity.
• To resolve this paradox, theories of perception have often postulated a
central process of ‘filling-in’ which would restore the uniform pattern of
color signals at some level in the visual cortex
• De Valois & Pease (1971) showed that type I colour-opponent cells of the
LGN are edge selective when stimulated with luminance patterns, but
respond best to full-field stimuli (i.e. surfaces) when tested with
equiluminant chromatic patterns.
• In the visual cortex, it was found that colour opponency is generally
paired with spatial antagonism (Livingstone & Hubel, 1984; Hubel &
Livingstone, 1987), which means that most colour-coded cells would
be activated only in the presence of contrast borders.
• Most cells in area V1 show band-pass spatial frequency tuning for
chromatic gratings, which also indicates selectivity for contrast borders.
• Some studies found that colour-sensitive cells in V1 and V4 are
generally not orientation selective (Zeki, 1983), but others found that
cells in area V1 are often colour- and orientation selective.
• It has been argued that colour–orientation-selective cells
are primarily needed for the detection of contours (which
can be defined by contrast in luminance or chromaticity)
and therefore belong to the form-processing path.
• Cells of the same orientation, but different colour
selectivity's, would subsequently be combined to form
‘universal colour cells’ (cells that respond to borders of any
colour or luminance contrast; Kruger & Gouras, 1980).
• Similarly, it has been argued that cells that serve colour
vision should be non-oriented (Livingstone & Hubel,
1984).
• Comparing the frequency of these types of cells between
V1 and V2 might give us a clue to understanding the goals
of cortical processing.
• If separation of colour and form information is a goal of
processing, then colour–orientation-selective cells should
be less frequent in the secondary visual area.
Three aspects of neural coding
• Edge selectivity
• Orientation selectivity
• Colour selectivity
Cells in the striate cortex (visual cortex)
• Simple Cells
• Complex Cells
Simple cells:
• These cells are most sensitive to a light or dark edge, or a bar of
specific orientation
• Different cells are sensitive to different orientation.
• The stimulus,[Link], must be of a specific width and must be properly
positioned within the cells’ receptive field.
• Each cells has in its receiptive field an excitatory and inhibitory
region.
• This building up of more complicated receptive field arrangements
(eg. Simple cells) from less complicated arrangements (eg. dLGN
cells) is called a serial or heirarchial processing.
Complex cells
• They respond best to an elongated stimulus of a specific
orientation.
• The stimulus can be positioned anywhere within the neuron’s
receptive field.
• Many complex cells have directional sensitivity .i.e. they are
sensitive to a stimulus moving in a specific direction.
• The receptive fields of simple cells have different excitatory
and inhibitory regions.
• But the receptive fields of complex cells donot contain such
distinct excitatory and inhibitory regions.
• dLGN cells combine their outputs to produce a simple cell’s
receptive field.
• Similarly, simple cells combine their outputs to produce a
complex cell’s receptive field.
The Neural Basis of Visual
Perception
• Rods and cones of the retina make synaptic contact with
horizontal cells and bipolar cells.
• Horizontal cells are cells in the eye that make inhibitory
contact onto bipolar cells.
• Bipolar cells make synapses onto amacrine cells and ganglion
cells.
• The different cells are specialized for different visual
functions.
• Ganglion cell axons form the optic nerve.
• The optic chiasm is the place where the two optic nerves leaving
the eye meet.
• In humans, half of the axons from each eye cross to the other side
of the brain.
• Most ganglion cell axons go to the lateral geniculate nucleus, a
smaller amount to the superior colliculus and fewer going to other
areas.
• The lateral geniculate nucleus is part of the thalamus specialized
for visual perception.
• Lateral inhibition is the reduction of activity in one neuron
by activity in neighboring neurons.
– The response of cells in the visual system depends upon the
net result of excitatory and inhibitory messages it receives.
– Lateral inhibition is the retina’s way responsible of
sharpening contrasts to emphasize the borders of
objects.
• The receptive field refers to the part of the visual field that
either excites or inhibits a cell in the visual system of the
brain.
• Ganglion cells of primates generally fall into three categories:
1. Parvocellular neurons- are highly sensitive to detect color
and visual detail.
2. Magnocellular neurons are highly sensitive to large
overall pattern and moving stimuli.
3. Koniocellular neurons - connect to the lateral geniculate
nucleus, other parts of the thalamus, and the superior
colliculus.
Pattern recognition in the cerebral cortex occurs in a few
places
• The primary visual cortex (area V1) receives information from
the lateral geniculate nucleus and is the area responsible for
the first
• The secondary visual cortex (area V2) receives information
from area V1, processes information further, and sends it to
other areas stage of visual processing
• The ventral stream refers to the most magnocellular visual
paths in the temporal cortex.
– Specialized for identifying and recognizing objects.
• The dorsal stream refers to the visual path in the parietal cortex.
– Helps the motor system to find objects and move towards
them.
• Color perception depends on both the parvocellular and
koniocellular paths:
– Area V4 may be responsible for color constancy and
visual attention.
Motion perception involves a variety of brain areas in all four
lobes of the cortex.
• The middle-temporal cortex (MT/ V5) responds to a stimulus
moving in a particular direction.
• Cells in the dorsal part of the medial superior temporal cortex
(MST) respond to expansion, contraction or rotation of a
visual stimulus.
• Motion blindness refers to the inability to determine the
direction, speed and whether objects are moving
