A Possible Neural Substrate for Visual Competition
Neurocomputing 26-27 (1999) 565-571
Abstract: Birds have a well-developed centrifugal pathway from the optic tectum to the retina via the isthmo-optic nucleus (ION). Receptive fields of the isthmo-optic (IO) neurons have a wide suppressive field extending to, at least, two-thirds of the entire visual field of a singe eye. Such wide suppressive fields indicate that the IO neurons may compete with each other for activity in a very long-range scale. Simulations using a simple dynamic model of the ION, based on the primitive competition model, suggests that the ION may be a neural substrate for visual competition.
