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Why Have Lateral Connections in the Visual Cortex?

Shimon Edelman
Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science
The Weizmann Institute of Science
Rehovot 76100, Israel
edelman@wisdom.weizmann.ac.il

Abstract

Lateral connections are rapidly becoming an integral part in the description of the functional architecture of many areas of the mammalian visual cortex [21,23]. The present paper surveys a number of possible computational reasons for processing information laterally, in cases ranging from the formation of orientation-selective receptive fields in the primary visual area to the representation of three-dimensional objects in the inferotemporal cortex. The invariable utility of lateral connections in all these cases suggests that lateral information processing should be considered not an anomaly, but a rule, and that the answer to the question posed in the title should be ``Why not?''


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Next: Introduction Up: Lateral Interactions in the Cortex: Structure and Function

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