B. Jagadeesh et al., LINEARITY OF SUMMATION OF SYNAPTIC POTENTIALS UNDERLYING DIRECTION SELECTIVITY IN SIMPLE CELLS OF THE CAT VISUAL-CORTEX, Science, 262(5141), 1993, pp. 1901-1904
Intracellular recordings from simple cells of the cat visual cortex we
re used to test linear models for the generation of selectivity for th
e direction of visual motion. Direction selectivity has been thought t
o arise in part from nonlinear processes, as suggested by previous exp
eriments that were based on extracellular recordings of action potenti
als. In intracellular recordings, however, the fluctuations in membran
e potential evoked by moving stimuli were accurately predicted by the
linear summation of responses to stationary stimuli. Nonlinear mechani
sms were not required.