Spike (action potential) responses of most primary visual cortical cells in the macaque are sharply tuned for the orientation of a line or an edge, and neurons preferring similar orientations are clustered together in cortical columns. The preferred stimulus orientation of these columns span the full range of orientations, as observed in recordings of spikes and in classical optical imaging of intrinsic signals. However, when we imaged the putative thalamic input to striate cortical cells that can be seen in imaging of intrinsic signals when they are analyzed on a larger spatial scale, we found that the orientation domain map of the primary visual cortex did not show the same diversity of orientations. This map was dominated by just the one orientation that is most commonly preferred by neurons in the retina and the lateral geniculate nucleus. This supports cortical feature selectivity and columnar architecture being built upon feed-forward signals transmitted from the thalamus in a very limited number of broadly tuned input channels.

中文翻译：

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由于数量有限的广泛调整的输入通道而导致的猕猴视觉皮层中特征选择性的多样性。

猕猴中大多数初级视觉皮层细胞的尖峰（动作电位）响应都针对线条或边缘的方向进行了微调，并且喜欢相似方向的神经元聚集在皮质列中。这些色谱柱的首选刺激取向在整个取向范围内，如在尖峰的记录和本征信号的经典光学成像中所观察到的。但是，当我们将假定的丘脑输入成像到纹状体皮层细胞时，如果在较大的空间尺度上对其进行分析，则可以在固有信号成像中看到它们，我们发现初级视觉皮层的取向域图没有显示出相同的多样性方向。该图仅由视网膜和外侧膝状核中的神经元最优选的一个方向主导。