Organization of suppression in receptive fields of neurons in cat visual cortex (original) (raw)

1. The response to an optimally oriented stimulus of both simple and complex cells in the cat's striate visual cortex (area 17) can be suppressed by the superposition of an orthogonally oriented drifting grating. This effect is referred to as cross-orientation suppression. We have examined the spatial organization and tuning characteristics of this suppressive effect with the use of extracellular recording techniques. 2. For a total of 75 neurons, we have measured the size of each cell's excitatory receptive field by use of rectangular patches of drifting sinusoidal gratings presented at the optimal orientation and spatial frequency. The length and width of these grating patches are varied independently. Receptive-field length and width are determined from the dimensions of the smallest grating patch required to elicit a maximal response. 3. The extent of the area from which cross-orientation suppression originates has been measured in an analogous manner. Each neuron is exc...