INTERAREAL SYNCHRONIZATION IN THE VISUAL-CORTEX

The primary visual cortex (V1) is part of a highly interconnected netw ork of cortical areas, hierarchically organized but operating concurre ntly across hierarchical levels. The high degree of reciprocal interco nnection among visual cortical areas provides a framework for their in teraction during the performance of visual scene analysis. The functio nal interdependency of visual cortical areas which develops during sce ne analysis can be investigated by techniques which measure interareal correlated activity. Evidence from monkeys performing a visual patter n discrimination suggests that synchronization of aperiodic activity f rom neuronal ensembles in cortical areas at different hierarchical lev els is a relevant aspect of visual function. The near-periodic nature of the synchronized response to moving light bars in earlier studies m ay have been a result of the type of stimulus used. Various models of visual cortex are discussed in which interareal synchronization plays a functional role.