Quadrature and the development of orientation selective cortical cells by Hebb rules.

We describe a new theoretical scenario for the development of orientation selective cells in a self-organizing feedforward network with modifiable synapses. A suitable choice of Hebb rule leads to a system that develops symmetric and antisymmetric response fields (quadrature pairs) at the same time as directional selectivity occurs using inhibition between neighboring cells. Quadrature phase relationships between the response properties of adjacent cortical cells is suggestive of several highly efficient information processing strategies.