Two symmetry breaking mechanisms for the development of orientation selectivity in a neural system
Abstract
Orientation selectivity is a remarkable feature of the neurons located in the primary visual cortex. Provided that the visual neurons acquire orientation selectivity through activity-dependent Hebbian learning, the development process could be understood as a kind of symmetry breaking phenomenon in the view of physics. The key mechanisms of the development process are examined here in a neural system. Found is that there are at least two different mechanisms which lead to the development of orientation selectivity through breaking the radial symmetry in receptive fields. The first, a simultaneous symmetry breaking mechanism, bases on the competition between neighboring neurons, and the second, a spontaneous one, bases on the nonlinearity in interactions. It turns out that only the second mechanism leads to the formation of a columnar pattern which characteristics accord with those observed in an animal experiment.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1503.04620,
title = {Two symmetry breaking mechanisms for the development of orientation selectivity in a neural system},
author = {Myoung Won Cho},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1503.04620},
year = {2016}
}