THE DEVELOPMENT OF TOPOGRAPHY IN THE VISUAL-CORTEX - A REVIEW OF MODELS

The repetitive stochastic patterns of eye dominance and orientation pr eference found in the mammalian visual cortex have attracted much atte ntion from theoretical neurobiologists during the last two decades. Re asons for this include the visually intriguing nature of the patterns and the fact that many aspects of their development seem likely to be dependent upon both spontaneous and visually driven patterns of neural activity. Understanding these processes holds out the promise that ge neral theories of learning and memory may be derived from those found to be applicable to the visual cortex. It has turned out, in fact, tha t remarkably simple models, based on Hebbian synaptic plasticity, intr acortical interactions and competitive interactions between cells and growing axons, have been able to explain much of the phenomenology. Th is article reviews the models of topographic organization in the visua l cortex in a roughly historical sequence, beginning with von der Mals burg's paper 1973 paper in Kybernetik on self-organization of orientat ion selectivity. The principles on which each of the models is based a re explained, and the plausibility of each model and the extent to whi ch it is able to account for the relevant experimental data are evalua ted. Attention is drawn to the underlying similarities and differences between the models and suggestions are made for future directions in research.