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Population receptive field (pRF) measurements of chromatic responses in human visual cortex using fMRI

L. Welbourne,A. Morland,Alex R. Wade

Published 2018 in NeuroImage

ABSTRACT

&NA; The spatial sensitivity of the human visual system depends on stimulus color: achromatic gratings can be resolved at relatively high spatial frequencies while sensitivity to isoluminant color contrast tends to be more low‐pass. Models of early spatial vision often assume that the receptive field size of pattern‐sensitive neurons is correlated with their spatial frequency sensitivity ‐ larger receptive fields are typically associated with lower optimal spatial frequency. A strong prediction of this model is that neurons coding isoluminant chromatic patterns should have, on average, a larger receptive field size than neurons sensitive to achromatic patterns. Here, we test this assumption using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We show that while spatial frequency sensitivity depends on chromaticity in the manner predicted by behavioral measurements, population receptive field (pRF) size measurements show no such dependency. At any given eccentricity, the mean pRF size for neuronal populations driven by luminance, opponent red/green and S‐cone isolating contrast, are identical. Changes in pRF size (for example, an increase with eccentricity and visual area hierarchy) are also identical across the three chromatic conditions. These results suggest that fMRI measurements of receptive field size and spatial resolution can be decoupled under some circumstances ‐ potentially reflecting a fundamental dissociation between these parameters at the level of neuronal populations. HighlightsNovel use of fMRI population receptive field (pRF) mapping, using chromatic stimuli.Spatial frequency sensitivity in early visual areas measured with fMRI.Differences in spatial sensitivity found between S‐cone and luminance conditions.No significant differences in pRF sizes between S‐cone and luminance conditions.Suggests that pRF sizes and spatial resolution are not coupled.

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