Adaptation of receptive field spatial organization via multiplicative lateral inhibition.

The interactions among electrically independent neurons via synapses mediating voltage controlled conductance become primarily multiplicative lateral inhibition. This nonlinear lateral inhibition among members of an array of neurons causes adaptation of the organization of the spatial receptive field. A proof of the adaptation is given and applications of the results to studies on insect visual interneurons are discussed. Given a simple hypothesis of spatial gradient of order of conductance dependence on neighboring cell voltage, a sharpening of spatial tuning of the receptive field is predicted with increased background level along with an increased linearization of the neuronal response function.