TY  - INPR
A1  - Weigand, Marvin
A1  - Cuntz, Hermann
T1  - A simple model for detailed visual cortex maps predicts fixed hypercolumn sizes
T2  - bioRxiv
N2  - Orientation hypercolumns in the visual cortex are delimited by the repeating pinwheel patterns of orientation selective neurons. We design a generative model for visual cortex maps that reproduces such orientation hypercolumns as well as ocular dominance maps while preserving retinotopy. The model uses a neural placement method based on t–distributed stochastic neighbour embedding (t–SNE) to create maps that order common features in the connectivity matrix of the circuit. We find that, in our model, hypercolumns generally appear with fixed cell numbers independently of the overall network size. These results would suggest that existing differences in absolute pinwheel densities are a consequence of variations in neuronal density. Indeed, available measurements in the visual cortex indicate that pinwheels consist of a constant number of ∼30, 000 neurons. Our model is able to reproduce a large number of characteristic properties known for visual cortex maps. We provide the corresponding software in our MAPStoolbox for Matlab.
KW  - Cortical column
KW  - Hypercolumn
KW  - Neural map
KW  - Optimal wiring
KW  - Visual cortex
KW  - Orientation preference
KW  - Pinwheel
KW  - Computational model
Y1  - 2022
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/72820
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-728201
IS  - 2020.09.01.277319
ER  -