A concept of the orientating reflex is presented, based on the principle of vector coding of cognitive and executive processes. The orientating reflex is a complex of orientating reactions of motor, autonomic, and subjective types, accentuating new and significant stimuli. Two main systems form the orientating reflex: the "targeting reaction" and the "searchlight of attention:" In the visual system, the targeting reaction ensures that the image of the object falls onto the fovea; this is mediated by involvement of premotor neurons which are excited by saccade command neurons in the superior colliculi. The "searchlight of attention" is activated as a result of resonance within the gamma frequency range, selectively enhancing cortical detectors and involving the reticular nucleus of the thalamus. Novelty signals arise in novelty neurons of the hippocampus. The synaptic weightings of neocortical detectors for hippocampal novelty neurons is initially characterized by high efficiency, which assigns a significant level of excitation of these neurons to the new stimulus. During repeated stimulation, the synaptic weightings of all the detectors representing a given stimulus decrease, with the result that the novelty signal becomes weaker. When the stimulus changes, it acts on other detectors, whose weightings for novelty neurons remain high, which strengthens the novelty signal. Decreases in the synaptic weightings on repetition of a standard stimulus form a trace of this stimulus in the novelty neurons - this is the "neural model of the stimulus." The novelty signal is determined by the non-concordance of the new stimulus with this "neural model," which is formed under the influence of the standard stimulus. The greater the difference between the new stimulus and the previously formed neural model, the stronger the novelty signal.
Extracellular recording of the activity of 54 neurons in the rabbit visual cortex in responses to substitutions of eight colored and eight monochromatic stimuli in pairs was studied. Stimuli were uniform flashes of light displayed on an SVGA monitor and illuminated the whole retina. The responses of phasic neurons showed an initial discharge (50-90 msec from the moment of the change in stimulus), associated with the brightness or color difference between the stimuli. These "discrimination discharges" were used to construct an 8 x 8 matrix for each neuron, showing the mean number of spikes per sec in responses to changes in different pairs of stimuli. Processing of the matrix by factor analysis identified the major factors determining the axes of the sensory space. A brightness space with only two dimensions, with darkness and brightness orthogonal axes, was seen for 30% of neurons. A four-dimensional color space was seen in 22% of neurons, with two color and two achromatic axes. The sensory space of these neurons was similar to the spaces obtained by analyzing the early components of visual evoked potentials in rabbits induced by changes in color stimuli and behavioral operant responses in conditioned reflex color differentiation. The fundamental coincidence of the sensory spaces obtained by different methods identifies the general nature of the principle of vector coding and the existence of special neuronal mechanisms for detection of color and brightness differences in the visual field.
The responses of 51 neurons in the lateral geniculate nucleus of the rabbit to substitution of colored stimuli different brightness and stimuli differing only in intensity were studied. Neurons in the geniculate nucleus, like neurons in the visual cortex, were found to respond with initial phasic discharges at 50-90 msec after stimulus substitution, the magnitudes of these responses correlating with the interstimulus differences; neurons also showed prolonged tonic responses in which the spike frequency depended on the intensity of the stimulus presented. Analysis of phasic responses allowed two groups of neurons to be identified: some were specialized to discriminate stimulus intensity only, while others were specialized to discriminate both the intensity and the color tone of the stimulus. Use of the magnitude of the early phasic discharge as a measure of the difference between stimuli yielded a sensory space for lateral geniculate nucleus neurons. The responses of neurons in the first group (44 cells, 86%) produced a two-dimensional achromatic space with two axes--brightness and darkness; this structure appeared independently of whether stimuli were of the same or different color tones. The phasic responses of neurons in the second group (seven of 51, 14%) generated a four-dimensional space with two color and two achromatic axes. The color and achromatic spaces of lateral geniculate nucleus neurons were analogous to the spaces previously identified for neurons in the rabbit visual cortex using the same stimulation conditions. The sensory spaces reconstructed on the basis of neuron phasic discharges essentially coincided with the spaces obtained from analysis of the N85 component of visual evoked potentials in rabbits, which provides support for the vector information coding principle in the visual analyzer. The tonic discharges of most lateral geniculate nucleus neurons correlated linearly with changes in stimulus intensity and can be regarded as reflecting a pre-detector function for the visual cortex detector neurons.
Study of conditioned reflexes in animals and man shows that on repetition of a conditioned stimulus (with preservation of active alertness) stabilization of the parameters of the conditioned response is observed: variability of the latency, duration and amplitude of the response is reduced.This develops parallel to extinction of the orienting reflex to the complex consisting of conditioned stimulus, afferent feedback from the executed movement, and stimulation associated with reinforcement, leading to modification of the afferent link of the conditioned reflex. Variability of the latency and shape of the cortical evoked potential diminishes with repetition of the stimulus. Modification of the afferent link may develop as a result of repetition of both conditioned and indifferent stimuli, i.e., irrespective of participation of the effector link of the conditioned reflex.The similarity between changes in responses in the analyzer during the action of conditioned and indifferent stimuli shows that in this case changes evidently take place in the unconditioned action of a repeated stimulus on the analyzer (3).The object of the present investigation of single unit responses in the rabbit visual cortex during repeated photic stimulation was to study participation of the afferent link in conditioned reflex stabilization.
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