• K Ohki, Y Matsuda, A Ajima, D S Kim, and S Tanaka.
• Laboratory for Neural Modeling, Brain Science Institute, RIKEN, Wako-shi, Saitama 351-01, Department of Physiology, University of Tokyo School of Medicine, Hongo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan.
• Cereb. Cortex. 2000 Jun 1; 10 (6): 593-601.

AbstractIn the primary visual cortex of higher mammals, orientation preferences are represented continuously except for singular points, so-called pinwheel centers. In spite of the uniqueness of orientation pinwheel centers, very little is known about the pattern of their arrangement. In this study we examined the arrangement of orientation pinwheel centers in the cat visual cortex by optical imaging of intrinsic signals. Our results demonstrate that orientation pinwheel centers are arranged in a unique geometric pattern around the area 17/18 transition zone: pinwheel centers of the same type are arranged in rows parallel to the transition zone, and rows of clockwise and counterclockwise pinwheel centers are arranged alternately. We suggest that the areal border imposes a strong restriction on the pattern formation of orientation preference maps in the visual cortex.

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