Tanaka K
Riken Brain Science Institute, Saitama, Japan.
Spat Vis. 2000;13(2-3):147-63. doi: 10.1163/156856800741171.
Cells in area TE of the inferotemporal cortex of the monkey brain selectively respond to various moderately complex object-features, and those responding to similar features cluster in a columnar region elongated vertical to the cortical surface. Although cells within a column respond to similar features, their selectivity is not identical. The data of optical imaging in TE have suggested that the borders between neighboring columns are not discrete but columns representing related features overlap one another. We have also found, by training adult monkeys for discrimination of a specific set of shapes, that such a long-term training increases the proportion of TE cells responding to the shapes used in the training even in the adult. The data suggested that TE plays important roles in discrimination of complex shapes and in visual expert learning of discriminating a certain class of objects in the adult.
猴脑颞下皮质TE区的细胞选择性地对各种中等复杂程度的物体特征做出反应，对相似特征做出反应的细胞聚集在一个垂直于皮质表面拉长的柱状区域内。虽然一个柱状区域内的细胞对相似特征做出反应，但其选择性并不相同。TE区的光学成像数据表明，相邻柱状区域之间的边界并非离散的，而是代表相关特征的柱状区域相互重叠。我们还通过训练成年猴子辨别一组特定形状发现，这种长期训练即使在成年猴子中也会增加TE区对训练中使用形状做出反应的细胞比例。这些数据表明，TE区在成年猴子辨别复杂形状以及视觉专家学习辨别某类物体方面发挥着重要作用。
