Interocular transfer of adaptation in the primary visual cortex.

Prolonged viewing of an unchanging pattern causes adaptation, which can be demonstrated by visual aftereffects such as the tilt and waterfall illusions. In normal observers, these typically exhibit interocular transfer (IOT), being observed when the adapting and test stimuli are shown to different eyes. Convergence of inputs from both eyes upon binocular neurons only occurs in the primary visual cortex (V1), and adaptation is substantially a cortical phenomenon. However, little is known about a physiological substrate of IOT in V1 and how it relates to the binocularity of neurons and local ocular dominance (OD) column architecture. We employed optical imaging to obtain OD maps in cat V1 and recorded from single neurons at targeted penetration sites to quantify their adaptation by drifting gratings when adapter and test stimulus were presented either to the same or to the opposite eyes. In contrast to earlier reports, clear IOT of adaptation was observed for binocular as well as monocular neurons; at population level, its strength amounted to 55%. Moreover, the position of the cells with respect to OD column borders had no significant effect on the strength of IOT. IOT does not appear to strongly depend on conventional binocularity of neurons.