Symposium on Orientation Selectivity

[Matteo Carandini]

                        A Satellite Symposium to the
            1996 Computation and Neural Systems CNS*96 Conference

      **** ORIENTATION SELECTIVITY IN V1. IS AN AGREEMENT POSSIBLE? *****

                      Wednesday, July 17, 7-10 pm
                         Bldg. E 25, Room 401
               Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT

     Organized by Matteo Carandini (Northwestern) and David Somers (MIT)


There is currently no agreement over whether the orientation selectivity of
cells in the primary visual cortex results from the feed-forward
arrangement of subcortical inputs or from intracortical feedback.  This
debate has gone on for about 30 years, and has recently been heated by the
modeling work of Somers et al (J Neurosci 95), Douglas et al (Science 95),
Suarez et al (J Neurosci 95) and Ben-Yishai et al (PNAS 95) and somewhat
cooled by the experimental results of Ferster et al (Nature 96) and of Reid
and Alonso (Nature 95).

We encourage those with active research interests in this topic to attend,
but also welcome those with more casual interest.  We aim to stimulate
discussion on the following issues:

- The available evidence. The two sides in the debate sometimes cite the
same references for opposite reasons. Let's discuss the evidence and decide
what models are consistent with it.

- The level of modeling. The existing models range from the very detailed
(e.g Somers, Suarez), to the very simplified (e.g. Douglas, Ben-Yishai).
What level of complexity should be achieved by a satisfactory model of
orientation selectivity?

- The ideal evidence. What would constitute unequivocal evidence against
one of the two views? Is this evidence available or should new experiments
be designed?

    *** Maximal participation by the audience will be encouraged.  ***

We have invited speakers with widely different opinions:

- David Ferster (Northwestern)
- Gary Holt (Caltech)
- Xing Pei (Missouri)
- Clay Reid (Harvard)
- Dario Ringach (NYU)
- Haim Sompolinsky (Hebrew U)

A sizeable portion of the time will be spent in a free discussion.  People
with strong interest in the topic, like Bob Shapley (NYU), Mriganka Sur
(MIT), Sacha Nelson (Brandeis) are expected to participate.


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Info on CNS*96 at http://www.bbb.caltech.edu/cns96/cns96.html