Hue maps in primate striate cortex

Abstract

The macaque striate cortex (V1) contains neurons that respond preferentially to various hues. The properties of these hue-selective neurons have been studied extensively at the single-unit level, but it is unclear how stimulus hue is represented by the distribution of activity across neuronal populations in V1. Here we use the intrinsic optical signal to image V1 responses to spatially uniform stimuli of various hues. We found that (1) each of these stimuli activates an array of patches in the supragranular layers of the parafoveal V1; (2) the patches activated by different hues overlapped partially; 3) the peak locations of these patches were determined by stimulus hue. The peaks associated with various hues form well-separated clusters, in which nearby peaks represent perceptually similar hues. Each cluster represents a full gamut of hue in a small cortical area (∼160 μm long). The hue order is preserved within each peak cluster, but the clusters have various geometrical shapes. These clusters were co-localized with regions that responded preferentially to chromatic gratings compared with achromatic ones. Our results suggest that V1 contains an array of hue maps, in which the hue of a stimulus is represented by the location of the peak response to the stimulus. The orderly, organized hue maps in V1, together with the recently discovered hue maps in the extrastriate cortical area V2, are likely to play an important role in hue perception in primates.