Orientation Selectivity in Macaque V1: Diversity and Laminar Dependence

We studied the steady-state orientation selectivity of single neurons in macaque primary visual cortex (V1). To analyze the data, two measures of orientation tuning selectivity, circular variance and orientation bandwidth, were computed from the tuning curves. Circular variance is a global measure of the shape of the tuning curve, whereas orientation bandwidth is a local measure of the sharpness of the tuning curve around its peak. Circular variance in V1 was distributed broadly, indicating a great diversity of orientation selectivity. This diversity was also reflected in the individual cortical layers. However, there was a tendency for neurons with high circular variance, meaning low selectivity for…

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  National Institutes of Health