CORTICAL DIRECTION SELECTIVITY WITHOUT DIRECTIONAL EXPERIENCE

How neurones in the visual cortex acquire their response properties du ring postnatal development is an important question with far-reaching implications. In the present study, we demonstrate the developmental s pecification of geniculo-cortical afferents using our previously propo sed model for the activity-dependent self-organization of neural netwo rks. Our results indicate, in contrast to common beliefs, that both or ientation and direction selectivity can be achieved in the primary vis ual cortex even if the retinae were never exposed to oriented and/or m oving objects during development.