Ribeiro Fernanda L, Benson Noah C, Puckett Alexander M
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Department of Medicine, Justus-Liebig University Giessen, Giessen, Germany.
J Vis. 2025 Jul 1;25(8):14. doi: 10.1167/jov.25.8.14.
The visual cortex encodes the visual field through numerous bilaterally paired, topologically organized two-dimensional maps along the cortical surface. Although these representations exhibit a largely consistent organization across individuals, substantial interindividual variability exists in both the structure and functional organization of the visual cortex. To better characterize this variability, researchers have increasingly turned to computational approaches, alongside empirical methodologies and encoding models, to predict individual-level retinotopic organization. As these advances continue to shape the study of retinotopic organization, it is crucial to revisit the methodologies used to generate and model these maps. In this review, we examine empirical and theoretical work aimed at reconstructing and modeling visual field maps in the human visual cortex. Specifically, we discuss how empirical retinotopic mapping has facilitated the development of theoretical and computational models of retinotopy and, in turn, how these models have enhanced our understanding of the retinotopic organization of the human visual cortex. Finally, we outline a non-exhaustive set of future directions for leveraging models of retinotopy to further investigate structure-function relationships, interindividual variability, and more.
视觉皮层通过沿皮质表面的众多双侧配对、拓扑组织的二维地图对视野进行编码。尽管这些表征在个体间表现出很大程度的一致组织，但视觉皮层的结构和功能组织中仍存在显著的个体间变异性。为了更好地表征这种变异性，研究人员越来越多地转向计算方法，以及实证方法和编码模型，以预测个体水平的视网膜拓扑组织。随着这些进展不断塑造视网膜拓扑组织的研究，重新审视用于生成和建模这些地图的方法至关重要。在这篇综述中，我们研究了旨在重建和建模人类视觉皮层视野地图的实证和理论工作。具体而言，我们讨论了实证视网膜拓扑映射如何促进了视网膜拓扑理论和计算模型的发展，以及反过来这些模型如何增强了我们对人类视觉皮层视网膜拓扑组织的理解。最后，我们概述了一组非详尽的未来方向，用于利用视网膜拓扑模型进一步研究结构-功能关系、个体间变异性等。
