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This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 558/3/717    most recent jphysiol.2004.065771v2 jphysiol.2004.065771v1 Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Ringach, D. L. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Ringach, D. L. Related Collections Review articles

Departments of Psychology and Neurobiology, Jules Stein Eye Institute and Brain Research Institute, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA

Nearly 40 years ago, in the pages of this journal, Hubel and Wiesel provided the first description of receptive fields in the primary visual cortex of higher mammals. They defined two classes of cortical cells, ‘simple’ and ‘complex’, based on neural responses to simple visual stimuli. The notion of a hierarchy of receptive fields, where increasingly intricate receptive fields are constructed from more elementary ones, was introduced. Since those early days we have witnessed the birth of quantitative methods to map receptive fields and mathematical descriptions of simple and complex cell function. Insights gained from these models, along with new theoretical concepts, are refining our understanding of receptive field structure and the underlying cortical circuitry. Here, I provide a brief historical account of the evolution of receptive field mapping in visual cortex along with the associated conceptual advancements, and speculate on the shape novel theories of the cortex may take as a result these measurements.

(Received 1 April 2004; accepted after revision 17 May 2004; first published online 21 May 2004)
Correspondence D. L. Ringach: Departments of Psychology, Neurobiology, Jules Stein Eye Institute and Brain Research Institute, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA. Email: dario{at}ucla.edu

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