Color and orientation are jointly coded and spatially organized in primate primary visual cortex

Abstract

Rethinking primary visual cortex function Understanding how color is coded in the brain is central to vision research. The presently dominant model suggests that color and orientation are separately extracted in the primate primary visual cortex. These characteristics are thought to be represented by neurons located in different cortical columns that project separately to higher visual areas for further processing. Working with macaques, Garg et al. recorded from thousands of neurons using two-photon calcium imaging with single-neuron resolution. Nearly half of sampled hue-selective neurons responded more strongly to equiluminant colored stimuli than to full-contrast achromatic stimuli. A majority of strongly color-preferring neurons were also orientation selective. Processing of orientation and color is thus combined at the earliest stages of visual processing, which challenges existing models. Science , this issue p. 1275