Modeling boundary vector cell firing given optic flow as a cue.

Boundary vector cells in entorhinal cortex fire when a rat is in locations at a specific distance from walls of an environment. This firing may originate from memory of the barrier location combined with path integration, or the firing may depend upon the apparent visual input image stream. The mode...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Florian Raudies, Michael E Hasselmo
Format: article
Language:EN
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doaj.org/article/cce40259ef0f4f0ebc9c7fe1dde19a1b
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Boundary vector cells in entorhinal cortex fire when a rat is in locations at a specific distance from walls of an environment. This firing may originate from memory of the barrier location combined with path integration, or the firing may depend upon the apparent visual input image stream. The modeling work presented here investigates the role of optic flow, the apparent change of patterns of light on the retina, as input for boundary vector cell firing. Analytical spherical flow is used by a template model to segment walls from the ground, to estimate self-motion and the distance and allocentric direction of walls, and to detect drop-offs. Distance estimates of walls in an empty circular or rectangular box have a mean error of less than or equal to two centimeters. Integrating these estimates into a visually driven boundary vector cell model leads to the firing patterns characteristic for boundary vector cells. This suggests that optic flow can influence the firing of boundary vector cells.