一种视皮层非经典感受野的模型

根据视觉信息加工过程中视皮层细胞非经典感受野对中心感受野区域具有抑制作用的生物机制,提出了一种模拟该机制的模型.用Gabor能量作为感受野响应,以高斯差分函数为基础构造两个具有方向的半椭圆环来作为非经典感受野区域,设计中心感受野与周边抑制区域的相位差权重函数来模拟非经典感受野的抑制机制.实验结果与这种生理特性相一致.     

A modified model for dynamic properties of visual receptive field

The extended Gabor function model for visual receptive field ( RF) was modified by substituting the term related to time with two-order integral kernel of F function to generate a new model called modified Gabor function model of RF. A set of the modified Gabor models (MGM) can present the major spatiotemporal properties of neuronal receplive fields at different levels of primary visual pathway. The transient responses, dynamic properties of RF simulated by MGM, are in good agreement with the observations in electrophysiological experiments.     

Receptive field dynamics in adult primary visual cortex.

The adult brain has a remarkable ability to adjust to changes in sensory input. Removal of afferent input to the somatosensory, auditory, motor or visual cortex results in a marked change of cortical topography. Changes in sensory activity can, over a period of months, alter receptive field size and cortical topography. Here we remove visual input by focal binocular retinal lesions and record from the same cortical sites before and within minutes after making the lesion and find immediate striking increases in receptive field size for cortical cells with receptive fields near the edge of the retinal scotoma. After a few months even the cortical areas that were initially silenced by the lesion recover visual activity, representing retinotopic loci surrounding the lesion. At the level of the lateral geniculate nucleus, which provides the visual input to the striate cortex, a large silent region remains. Furthermore, anatomical studies show that the spread of geniculocortical afferents is insufficient to account for the cortical recovery. The results indicate that the topographic reorganization within the cortex was largely due to synaptic changes intrinsic to the cortex, perhaps through the plexus of long-range horizontal connections.     

Segregation of efferent connections and receptive field properties in visual area V2 of the macaque

V2 is a visual area of the macaque monkey which is at the second level in a recently proposed hierarchy of cortical visual areas. Histochemical staining for cytochrome oxidase (CO) in V2 reveals a pattern of alternate thick and thin CO-rich stripes separated by CO-sparse interstripes. These subregions receive distinct inputs from neurones in CO-rich and CO-sparse zones arrayed within the superficial layers of V1 (refs 4, 5). Are output projections from V2 to higher visual areas also segregated? Using an anatomical double-label paradigm, we have now demonstrated that V2 cells projecting to two of its major target areas, MT and V4 (refs 6, 7), are arranged in stripe-like clusters which are largely segregated from one another and which are closely related to the pattern of CO stripes. Concomitant electrophysiological recordings from V2 indicate that groups of cells having similar receptive field properties are clustered within the subregions defined by these anatomical techniques.     

Maturation and connectivity of the visual cortex in monkey is altered by prenatal removal of retinal input

In several species, the peripheral input from the eyes partly determines the pattern of interconnections between the visual areas of the two cerebral hemispheres through the fibre tract termed the corpus callosum. In the macaque monkey, the neurons projecting through the callosum are largely restricted to area 18 throughout ontogeny, whereas area 17 is characterized by few or no callosal projections. Here, we show that suppressing the peripheral input by prenatal removal of the eyes leads to a marked reduction in the extent of area 17, resulting in a large shift in the position of the histologically identifiable boundary between the two areas. Even so, the boundary continues to separate an area rich with callosal connections (area 18) from one poor in such projections (area 17), indicating there is no effect on the callosal connectivity of area 17. In contrast, in area 18, eye removal results in many more neurons with callosal projections than in normal animals. The results suggest that the factors that determine the parcellation of cortical areas also specify their connectivity.     

Non-classical receptive field mediates switch in a sensory neuron's frequency tuning

Animals have developed stereotyped communication calls to which specific sensory neurons are well tuned. These communication calls must be discriminated from environmental signals such as those produced by prey. Sensory systems might have evolved neural circuitry to encode both categories. In weakly electric fish, prey and communication signals differ in their spatial extent and frequency content. Here we show that stimuli of different spatial extents mimicking prey and communication signals cause a switch in the frequency tuning and spike-timing precision of electrosensory pyramidal neurons, resulting in the selective and optimal encoding of both stimulus categories. As in other sensory systems, pyramidal neurons respond only to stimuli located within a restricted region of space known as the classical receptive field (CRF). In some systems, stimulation outside the CRF but within a non-classical receptive field (nCRF) can modulate the neural response to CRF stimulation even though nCRF stimulation alone fails to elicit responses. We show that pyramidal neurons possess a nCRF and that it can modulate the response to CRF stimuli to induce this neurobiological switch in frequency tuning.     

Endstopped neurons in the visual cortex as a substrate for calculating curvature

Neurons in the visual cortex typically respond selectively to the orientation, and velocity and direction of movement, of moving-bar stimuli. These responses are generally thought to provide information about the orientation and position of lines and edges in the visual field. Some cells are also endstopped, that is selective for bars of specific lengths. Hubel and Wiesel first observed that endstopped hypercomplex cells could respond to curved stimuli and suggested they might be involved in detection of curvature, but the exact relationship between endstopping and curvature has never been determined. We present here a mathematical model relating endstopping to curvature in which the difference in response of two simple cells gives rise to endstopping and varies in proportion to curvature. We also provide physiological evidence that endstopped cells in area 17 of the cat visual cortex are selective for curvature, whereas non-endstopped cells are not, and that some are selective for the sign of curvature. The prevailing view of edge and curve determination is that orientations are selected locally by the class of simple cortical cells and then integrated to form global curves. We have developed a computational theory of orientation selection which shows that measurements of orientation obtained by simple cells are not sufficient because there will be strong, incorrect responses from cells whose receptive fields (RFs) span distinct curves (Fig. 1). If estimates of curvature are available, however, these inappropriate responses can be eliminated. Curvature provides the key to structuring the network that underlies our theory and distinguishes it from previous lateral inhibition schemes.     

基于自适应感受野的教室人体姿态实时检测

人体姿态信息对教学管理和教学评估具有重要作用,通过算法快速且准确地获取人体姿态信息具有重要的研究意义。近年来,尽管基于人体关键点的姿态估计方法被广泛研究,但由于教室监控场景图像普遍存在遮挡严重、目标尺度变化大、图像成像质量差等问题,难以直接运用现有方法。提出一种基于自适应感受野的教室人体姿态实时检测方法。在单发多边框检测器(single shot multibox detector, SSD)网络中,构建自适应感受野卷积模块,通过上下两个支路提取不同感受野的特征;在反向传播过程中,自动学习上下支路的特征融合参数,自适应调整网络的感受野;提高网络在教室场景中人体姿态的检测性能。实验结果表明,提出的方法可以实现实时检测,且优于现有的教室人体姿态检测方法和其他单阶段目标检测方法。