Abstract
Directional selectivity, in which neurons respond preferentially to one direction of movement ("preferred") over the opposite direction ("null"), is a critical computation that is found in the nervous systems of many animals. Here we show the first experimental evidence for a correlation between differences in short-term depression and direction-selective responses to moving objects. As predicted by quantitative models, the observed differences in the time courses of short-term depression at different locations within receptive fields were correlated with measures of direction selectivity in awake, behaving weakly electric fish (Apteronotus leptorhynchus). Because short-term depression is ubiquitous in the central nervous systems of vertebrate animals, it may be a common mechanism used for the generation of directional selectivity and other spatiotemporal computations.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 3270-3279 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Journal of neurophysiology |
Volume | 102 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Dec 2009 |
Externally published | Yes |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Neuroscience(all)
- Physiology