To identify neural circuits that might achieve categorization, we began by first capturing basic properties of neuronal responses to single and multiple competing stimuli. To this end, we use standard mathematical equations that account accurately for experimental

results and that have been employed widely in the literature. OTid neurons respond nonlinearly to increasing strengths of a single stimulus inside their RFs. Strong stimuli (high contrast, high-sound level, fast motion, etc.) drive neurons to saturation. These nonlinear responses are well fit by sigmoidal functions (Mysore et al., 2010 and Mysore et al., 2011). In this study, looming visual stimuli (expanding dots) were used to drive neural responses. A standard sigmoidal Carfilzomib equation, the hyperbolic-ratio function (Naka and Rushton, 1966), describes OTid responses to an RF stimulus of loom speed l: equation(1) OT=a+b(lnln+L50n) The parameters are a, the minimum response; b, the maximum change in response; L50, the loom speed that yields a half-maximum response; and n, a factor that controls response saturation. The mechanisms that

underlie response saturation to single stimuli are distinct from those that mediate global surround selleck products suppression, the focus of this study ( Freeman et al., 2002 and Mysore et al., 2010). Therefore, without loss of generality, we focus on the lateral inhibition for surround suppression while using the sigmoidal function as a description of OTid responses to single stimuli. For subsequent simulations, the best sigmoidal fit to the experimentally measured, average loom speed-response function from 61 OTid neurons (Figure 2A) was used only as the response function of a typical OTid unit: equation(2) OT=5.3+22.2(l2l2+11.62) Here, the first term (5.3) represents the contribution of the contrast of a stationary dot (loom speed = 0°/s) to the

response: the average response to a loom speed of 0°/s at full contrast was 5.3 sp/s. Because this contribution of stimulus contrast was small, we made the simplifying assumption that the dependence of the response on the contrast of a stationary dot was linear. Because all responses were simulated for full-contrast stimuli (contrast = 1), the contrast-related term was simply a constant, 5.3. Responses to RF stimuli are divisively suppressed by a competing stimulus located outside the RF (Figure 2B; Mysore et al., 2010). We captured this divisive effect of lateral inhibition by introducing both input and output divisive influences in a manner similar to previously published reports (Equation 3; Olsen et al., 2010). equation(3) OT=(1sout+1)·(5.3sin+1+22.2(l2l2+11.62+sin2)) Here, sin and sout are suppressive factors that produce input and output division, respectively (see Supplemental Experimental Procedures available online).