Erin Berrisford, Lisa Fenske, Adam Justin, Sara Duxbury, Joe Tuzinski, & Ryan Mastellar

 Hubel and Wiesel  Used a recording electrode to push farther and farther down into the cortex, finding neurons with similar response properties  Neurons with similar orientation are arranged in vertical columns throughout the cortex History

 A column is a trio of vertical cells  Respond to similar stimuli and characteristics  The cells in each column work together to interpret a stimuli  Take a thick, yellow, slanted line  One cell interprets the yellow, another the thickness, another orientation- all these cells work together to see a yellow line that is thick and slanted  Each column prefers input from the left or right eye  Located in the striate cortex  Each column covers about.5mm What is a column?

 Contains at least two sets of columns that function as a unit  Each is like a mini computer  Each perceives one small portion of the visual field  Enough columns to cover every possible orientation ( degrees)  Each hypercolumn is about 1mm across  Half of the hypercolumn responds to light falling on the left retina, the other half responds to light falling on the right retina  Each hypercolumn has enough cells to respond to light, orientation, and bar width  Includes a pair of columns called blobs Hypercolumns

 Function unclear  CO blob columns are thought to aid in processing color (CO stands for cytochrom oxidase- a staining technique enzyme)  Interblob regions process motion and spatial structure Blobs

Demonstration

Scan in picture and place here

 Hypercolumns are used by the striate cortex to analyze size, shape, speed, and direction  Each cell is in charge of a certain characteristic but all work together to create the pictures we interpret from the visual world To Sum up