Towards a Functional Explanation of the Connectivity LGN - V1

Motivation The principles behind the connectivity between LGN and V1 are not well understood. Models have to explain two basic experimental trends: (i) the combination of thalamic responses is local and it gives rise to a variety of oriented Gabor-like receptive fields in V1 [1], and (ii) these filters are spatially organized in orientation maps [2]. Competing explanations of orientation maps use purely geometrical arguments such as optimal wiring or packing from LGN [3–5], but they make no explicit reference to visual function. On the other hand, explanations based on functional arguments such as maximum information transference (infomax) [6,7] usually neglect a potential contribution from LGN local circuitry. In this work we explore the ability of the conventional functional arguments (infomax and variants), to derive both trends simultaneously assuming a plausible sampling model linking the retina to the LGN [8], as opposed to previous attempts operating from the retina.