Mach bands in the lateral eye of Limulus.

Abstract

A B s T R A C T Patterns of optic nerve activity were computed for stationary step patterns of illumination from theoretical models of lateral inhibition based on revised Hartline-Ratliff equations. The computed response patterns contain well-defined Mach bands which match closely in amplitude and shape those recorded from single optic nerve fibers of the Limulus lateral eye. Theory and experiment show that the amplitude of the Mach bands is reduced by an inhibitory nonlinearity, the width of the Mach bands is approximately equal to the lateral dimension of the inhibitory field, but the shapes of the Mach bands are poor indices of the precise configuration of the inhibitory field. Theorems are proved establishing the equivalence of Mach-band patterns for models of different dimensions and a uniqueness condition for solutions of the piecewise linear model.

Upregulation of cAMP Response Element-Mediated Gene Expression during Experience-Dependent Plasticity in Adult Neocortex

“…8) are also consistent with a model whereby reciprocal lateral inhibition between the barrels controls dynamic excitability levels. The principal is similar to the familiar lateral inhibitory system operating in the retina to produce greatest activity at luminance contrast edges (Barlow and Quarles, 1975). In the present case, the greatest activity is produced at tactile borders created by the deprivation.…”

Stereo Algorithm with Anisotropic Reaction-Diffusion Systems

“…Hartline and Ratliff found that there are excitatory and inhibitory interactions among outputs of individual eye units in compound eyes of Limulus, and proposed a linear model of equations describing the interactions [52]. Later, Barlow and Quarles proposed a nonlinear model for explaining the Mach-bands pattern observed in the visual system of Limulus [17]; they derived the nonlinear model by modifying the original model proposed by Hartline and Ratliff [52]. By comparing laboratory experiments with numerical results of the two models of equations, they indicated the importance of the long-range inhibition and the nonlinearity in the modified model for explaining the Mach-bands pattern.…”

“…We can expect that the pulse propagation phenomenon in a reaction-diffusion system serves as the continuity constraint in the stereo correspondence problem, and thus we proposed a stereo algorithm consisting of exclusively connected multi-layered reaction-diffusion systems [14]. In addition, inspired by the strong inhibitory diffusion causing Turing patterns [16], and suggested by a lateral inhibition mechanism in a biological visual system [17], we have imposed the strong inhibitory diffusion on the reaction-diffusion stereo algorithm.…”