Mammalian Visual Cortex

The mammalian visual cortex performs a remarkable transformation of the information it receives from the eye. Neurons in the cortex are sensitive to the orientation, motion, depth and size of objects in ways that the eye is not, which means that the cortex extracts this information from the nonspecific input it receives from the eye. We are studying the neuronal mechanisms by which this cortex performs this transformation. Neuronal connections are traced within the cortex and their functions observed during normal vision by recording intracellularly from neurons in vivo using a patch recording method developed in the lab. Our recent studies have focused on the manner in which excitatory and inhibitory inputs interact, the mechanisms of oscillatory firing and the origin of orientation and direction selectivity in cortical cells.

e-mail Dr. Ferster
ph: 847.491.4137
fax: 847.491.5211

Selected References:

• Ozeki H, Finn IM, Schaffer ES, Miller KD, Ferster D. (2009). Inhibitory stabilization of the cortical network underlies visual surround suppression. Neuron. 28;62(4):578-92. [Full Text].

• Priebe NJ, Ferster D. (2008). Inhibition, spike threshold, and stimulus selectivity in primary visual cortex. Neuron. 57(4):482-97. [Full Text].

• Finn IM, Ferster D. (2007). Computational diversity in complex cells of cat primary visual cortex. Journal of Neuroscience. 27(36):9638-48. [Full Text].

• Finn, I.M., Priebe, N.J. and Ferster, D. (2007) The emergence of contrast-invariant orientation tuning in simple cells of the cat visual cortex. Neuron 54:137-152.[Full Text].

• Priebe, N.J. and Ferster, D. (2006) Mechanisms underlying cross-orientation suppression in cat primary visual cortex. Nature Neuroscience 9:552-561.[Full Text].

• Boudreau, C.E. and Ferster, D. (2005) Short-term synaptic depression in thalamocortical synapses of the cat primary visual cortex. Journal of Neuroscience 25:7179-7190.[Full Text].

• Priebe, N.J. and Ferster, D. (2005) Direction-selectivity of excitation and inhibition in simple cells of the cat primary visual cortex. Neuron 45:133-145.[Full Text] .

• Priebe, N.J., 1, Mechler, F., Carandini, M. and, Ferster, D. (2004) The contribution of the action potential threshold to the dichotomy between V1 simple and complex cells. Nature Neuroscience 7:1113-1122.[Full Text] .