receptive field
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What is a receptive field in physiology?
In physiology, a receptive field is a region in the sensory periphery where stimuli can influence the electrical activity of sensory cells. It includes sensory receptors that connect to sensory neurons, incorporating specific receptors on a neuron and groups of receptors activating a neuron through synaptic connections.
Receptive fields are organized serially and hierarchically. As sensory information moves from the receptor to the thalamus, then to the primary sensory cortex and higher cognitive areas, the stimulus requirements become more complex.
Receptive fields are spatial entities, such as a part of the visual field or retina, or a portion of the body surface. In the auditory system, a cell’s receptive field can be defined as the specific set of frequencies to which the cell responds. The receptive field of a sensory neuron is defined by its synaptic inputs.
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Where are receptive fields found in the human body?
Receptive fields, areas in the sensory periphery where stimuli influence sensory cell electrical activity, are found throughout the body. This includes the body surface, tissues like muscles and joints, the eyes, and internal organs.
Each sensory modality comprises multiple brain areas. As one moves from the receptor to the thalamus, to the primary sensory cortex, and then to higher cognitive areas of the brain, receptive fields need increasingly complex stimuli. In the visual and somatosensory systems, receptive fields can be circular or oval regions of the retina or skin. In the auditory system, hair cells tuned to particular frequencies are located at different locations along the basilar membrane, implying a spatial relevance for auditory receptive fields.
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How do receptive fields help us sense touch or light?
Receptive fields are areas in the sensory periphery where stimuli can change the electrical activity of sensory cells. They contain sensory receptors that feed into sensory neurons, activating them through synaptic connections.
In the visual and somatosensory systems, receptive fields can be circular or oval regions of the retina or skin. In the thalamus, they are circular and display center-surround antagonism, where a stimulus in one region causes activating responses and in surrounding regions causes inhibitory responses. This is called lateral inhibition, where the best stimulus is a distinct spot of light or contact with contrast between the central and surrounding regions.
Receptive fields are spatial entities, referring to a region of the visual field, retina, or body surface. In the auditory system, a cell’s receptive field can be defined as the specific set of frequencies to which the cell responds.
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Why do different parts of the body have different-sized receptive fields?
Different parts of the body have varying sizes of receptive fields, which are regions in the sensory periphery where stimuli can influence the electrical activity of sensory cells. The size of a receptive field relates to the number of photoreceptors, such as rods and cones, that connect with a single ganglion cell.
Receptive fields are organized serially and hierarchically. As sensory information moves from the receptor to the thalamus, then to the primary sensory cortex, and finally to higher cognitive areas of the brain, the stimulus requirements become increasingly complex. The spatial structure and temporal dynamics of receptive fields are characterized using methods like the peristimulus time response plane and spike-triggered averaging.
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How do receptive fields work in the eyes to help us see?
Receptive fields in the eye are areas where light stimuli influence the activity of sensory cells, specifically photoreceptors like rods and cones. These photoreceptors connect with ganglion cells; the organization of these connections determines how we perceive changes and contours.
Each ganglion cell's receptive field has a center and periphery. Light in the center excites the cell, while light in the periphery inhibits it. This arrangement means that the brain isn't overwhelmed with constant, unnecessary messages. Instead, cells respond to changes, like movement or contrasting light patterns, enhancing our ability to detect motion and edges. This center-periphery setup and lateral inhibition helps the eye to sharpen images physiologically.
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How can changes in receptive fields affect perception or cause problems in the nervous system?
Changes in receptive fields can significantly impact perception and potentially cause nervous system issues. Receptive fields are specific areas that, when stimulated, influence the activity of sensory neurons.
A serial and hierarchical organization of receptive field properties exists, and as stimuli move from the receptor to the primary sensory cortex, increasingly complex stimulus requirements are demonstrated. Stimuli presented outside the classical receptive field can affect the cell that fires and modulate responses.
Characterization methods capture the spatial structure and temporal dynamics of the receptive field, noting that the spatial structure evolves over time with excitatory and inhibitory subregions changing. The apparent brightness of a stimulus depends not only on its own luminance but also on that of the surrounding stimulation.
Overall, changes or disruptions in receptive field properties can alter sensory perception.
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receptive field, region in the sensory periphery within which stimuli can influence the electrical activity of sensory cells. The receptive field encompasses the sensory receptors that feed into sensory neurons and thus includes specific receptors on a neuron as well as collectives of receptors that are capable of activating a neuron via synaptic connections. Receptive fields are found throughout the body, including over the body surface; in tissues such as muscles, joints, and the eyes; and in internal organs. The concept of the receptive field is central to sensory neurobiology, because it provides a description of the location at which a sensory stimulus must be presented in order to elicit a response from a sensory cell.
Discovery of receptive fields
One of the first scientists to use the term receptive field was English physiologist Sir Charles Scott Sherrington, who in 1906 incorporated it into his discussion of the scratch reflex in dogs. Around the same time, a number of researchers were studying electrical potentials in the eye and optic nerve in response to visual stimuli. Although those studies provided some insight into the physiology of sensory reception, it was not until 1938 that the modern concept of the receptive field emerged. That year American physiologist Haldan Keffer Hartline became the first to isolate and record electrical responses from single optic nerve fibres of vertebrate eyes. Hartline defined the receptive field of a retinal ganglion cell as the retinal area from which an increase in the frequency of action potentials could be elicited. (An action potential is a temporary reversal in electrical polarization of the neuron membrane that produces a nerve impulse.) His work played a key role in the identification of receptive fields on single neurons. In 1953 British neuroscientist Horace B. Barlow and American neurophysiologist Stephen W. Kuffler extended Hartline’s definition to include all areas of the retina within which stimulation could either excite or inhibit the ganglion cell response. Also in the 1950s American physiologist Vernon B. Mountcastle described the response properties of single neurons in the somatosensory thalamus and the cortex.
Organization of receptive field properties
There is a serial and hierarchical organization of receptive field properties. Each sensory modality is composed of multiple brain areas. As one proceeds from receptor to thalamus to the primary sensory cortex and higher cognitive areas of the brain, receptive fields demonstrate increasingly complex stimulus requirements. For example, in the auditory system, peripheral neurons may respond well to pure tones, whereas some central neurons respond better to frequency-modulated sounds. In the primary visual and somatosensory cortex, receptive fields are selective for the orientation or direction of motion of a stimulus, whereas in higher visual cortical areas, neurons may respond best to images of faces or objects.
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In the visual and somatosensory systems, receptive fields can be essentially circular or oval regions of retina or skin. By contrast, in the thalamus, visual and somatosensory receptive fields are circular and exhibit centre-surround antagonism, in which onset of a stimulus in one skin or retinal region elicits activating responses and in surrounding regions elicits inhibitory responses. Thus, the same stimulus produces opposite responses in those regions. The effects of stimulus antagonism at different locations are a manifestation of the phenomenon called lateral inhibition. In lateral inhibition the optimal stimulus is not spatially uniform across the receptive field; rather, it is a discrete spot of light (in the case of the eye) or contact (in the case of a body surface), with contrast between central and surrounding regions.
Referring as it does to a region, a receptive field is fundamentally a spatial entity (a portion of the visual field or retina, or a portion of the body surface); that makes the most sense in the visual and somatosensory systems. In the auditory system hair cells tuned to particular frequencies are located at different locations along the basilar membrane, implying a spatial relevance for auditory receptive fields. In the auditory system one could define a cell’s receptive field as the specific set of frequencies to which the cell responds. In the nervous system generally, the receptive field of a sensory neuron is defined by its synaptic inputs; each cell’s receptive field results from the combination of fields of all of the neurons providing input to it. Because inputs are not simply summed, the receptive field properties of a neuron commonly are described in terms of the stimuli that elicit responses from the cell.
The classical receptive field
The characteristics of a cell’s receptive field depend on how the field is measured. The classic method to determine the location and extent of the receptive field is to present discrete stimuli at different locations in the sensory periphery, such as on the retina or the skin. The region that yields deviations in action potential (or “spike”) discharge rate away from the background activity level of a neuron has been variously referred to as the receptive field, the classical receptive field, the receptive field centre, the discharge field, the discharge centre, the minimum discharge field, or the minimum response field. The region traditionally defined as the classical receptive field also includes the inhibitory subregions involved in centre-surround antagonism, since stimuli presented in the inhibitory subregions can evoke responses when they are turned off. The classical receptive field excludes surrounding regions that may be relevant to a neuron’s activity. Thus, by definition, stimuli presented outside the cell’s receptive field do not by themselves change its spiking activity.