In vivo optical imaging and its application to the study of brain functions

摘要

Primate inferotemporal cortex (IT) is thought to be essential for object recognition. To investigate the functional organization in IT, optical imaging based on intrinsic signals was carried out. The features critical for the activation of single cells were first determined in unit recordings with electrodes. In the subsequent optical imaging, presentation of the critical features activated patchy regions covering the site of the electrode penetration at which the critical feature had been determined. These results directly indicate the regional clustering of cells with similar stimulus selectivity and demonstrate the feasibility of optical imaging technique for the study of association cortex.