Stochastic resonance in visual cortical neurons: does the eye-tremor actually improve visual acuity?

Matthias H Hennig, Nicolas J Kerscher, Klaus Funke, Florentin Woergoetter

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We demonstrate with electrophysiological recordings that visual cortical cell responses to moving stimuli with very small amplitudes can be enhanced by adding a small amount of noise to the motion pattern of the stimulus. This situation mimics the micro-movements of the eye during fixation and shows that these movements could enhance the performance of the cells. In a biophysically realistic model we show in addition, that micro-movements can be used to enhance the visual resolution of the cortical cells by means of spatiotemporal integration. This mechanism could partly underlie the hyperacuity properties of the visual system.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)115-120
Number of pages6
JournalNeurocomputing
Volume44-46
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2002

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