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A spatially organized representation of colour in macaque cortical area V2

Abstract

Neurons responding selectively to different colours have been found in various cortical areas in macaque monkeys1; however, little is known about whether and how the representation of colour is spatially organized in any cortical area. Cortical area V2 contains modules that respond preferentially to chromatic modulation, which are located in thin cytochrome oxidase stripes2,3,4. Here we show that within and beyond these modules, gratings of different colours produce activations that peak at different locations. Optical recording of intrinsic signals revealed that the peak regions of the responses to different colours were spatially organized in the same order as colour stimuli are arranged in the DIN (German standard colour chart) colour system. Nearby regions represented colours of a similar hue. We found that the set of colour-specific regions formed 0.07–0.32-mm-wide and approximately 1.3-mm long bands that varied in shape from linear to nearly circular. Our finding suggests that thin stripes in V2 contain functional maps where the colour of a stimulus is represented by the location of its response activation peak.

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Figure 1: A colour-specific band in V2.
Figure 2: Bands of peak responses to different stimuli.
Figure 3: Localization of a colour-specific band.
Figure 4: Comparison between neuronal and optical signals.

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Acknowledgements

We thank L. Cleary, E. Kaplan, J. Maunsell and J. Krauskopf for their suggestions on the manuscript. We also thank A. Zych and X. Huang for computer programming, Q. Huang for technical support and J. Chen for discussion. This research was supported by an individual grant from the National Eye Institute to D.J.F. and a core grant from the National Eye Institute to the University of Texas, Health Science Center at Houston.

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Correspondence to Youping Xiao.

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Xiao, Y., Wang, Y. & Felleman, D. A spatially organized representation of colour in macaque cortical area V2. Nature 421, 535–539 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01372

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