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Published June 4, 1979 | public
Journal Article

Binocular Visual Processing in the Owl's Telencephalon

Abstract

Single neurons recorded from the owl's visual Wulst are surprisingly similar to those found in mammalian striate cortex. The receptive fields of Wulst neurons are elaborated, in an apparently hierarchical fashion, from those of their monocular, concentrically organized inputs to produce binocular interneurons with increasingly sophisticated requirements for stimulus orientation, movement and binocular disparity. Output neurons located in the superficial laminae of the Wulst are the most sophisticated of all, with absolute requirements for a combination of stimuli, which include binocular presentation at a particular horizontal binocular disparity, and with no response unless all of the stimulus conditions are satisfied simultaneously. Such neurons have the properties required for 'global stereopsis, including a receptive field size many times larger than their optimal stimulus, which is more closely matched to the receptive fields of the simpler, disparity-selective interneurons. These marked similarities in functional organization between the avian and mammalian systems exist in spite of a number of structural differences which reflect their separate evolutionary origins. Discussion therefore includes the possibility that there may exist for nervous systems only a very small number of possible solutions, perhaps a unique one, to the problem of stereopsis.

Additional Information

© 1979 The Royal Society. Published 4 January 1979. This work was supported by grants from the Spencer Foundation and the U.S. Public Health Service (No. EY1909 from the National Eye Institute and No. MH25852 from the National Institutes of Mental Health and Drug Abuse). The owls were provided by Masakazu Konishi, who also took part in all the early recording sessions. Invaluable technical assistance was provided by H. Adams, G. Blasdel, M. Cooper and Sarah Kennedy.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 20, 2023