Luminance and spatial contrast provide information on the surfaces and edges of objects. We investigated neural responses to black and white surfaces in the primary visual cortex (V1) of mice and monkeys. Unlike primates that use their fovea to inspect objects with high acuity, mice lack a fovea and have low visual acuity. It thus remains unclear whether monkeys and mice share similar neural mechanisms to process surfaces. The animals were presented with white or black surfaces and the population responses were measured at high spatial and temporal resolution using voltage-sensitive dye imaging. In mice, the population response to the surface was not edge-dominated with a tendency to center-dominance, whereas in monkeys the response was edge-dominated with a “hole” in the center of the surface. The population response to the surfaces in both species exhibited suppression relative to a grating stimulus. These results reveal the differences in spatial patterns to luminance surfaces in the V1 of mice and monkeys and provide evidence for a shared suppression process relative to grating.

中文翻译：

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小鼠和猴子视觉皮层中的亮度表面编码：对边缘和中心的反应差异

亮度和空间对比度提供有关物体表面和边缘的信息。我们研究了小鼠和猴子初级视觉皮层 (V1) 对黑色和白色表面的神经反应。与使用中央凹以高敏锐度检查物体的灵长类动物不同，小鼠缺乏中央凹并且视力较低。因此，目前尚不清楚猴子和小鼠是否具有相似的处理表面的神经机制。这些动物呈现出白色或黑色的表面，并使用电压敏感染料成像以高空间和时间分辨率测量群体反应。在小鼠中，群体对表面的反应不是边缘主导的，而是中心主导的趋势，而在猴子中，反应是边缘主导的，表面中心有一个“洞”。两个物种对表面的群体反应都表现出相对于光栅刺激的抑制。这些结果揭示了小鼠和猴子 V1 亮度表面空间模式的差异，并为相对于光栅的共享抑制过程提供了证据。