Abstract
Orientational tuning of primary visual cortical unit activity was investigated in acute experiments on cats immobilized by a muscle relaxant, by the time slices method. Poststimulus histograms of responses of a neuron to presentation of a flashing bar of light in the center of its receptive field, with different orientations, were plotted; graphs of orientational tuning with respect to mean discharge frequency in consecutive time cuts of the responses with a 10 or 20 msec step were then plotted. Orientational tuning in all cortical neurons studied exhibited considerable dynamic changes in sharpness and preferred orientation. In two thirds of cells an effect of scanning a certain part of the range of orientations was observed, in the form of a successive shift of the maximum of the orientational tuning curve from some preferred orientations to others was discovered. The possible functional significance of spike discharges of visual cortical neurons is discussed.
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