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Maintained Discharge in the Visual System and its Role for Information Processing

  • Chapter
Central Processing of Visual Information A: Integrative Functions and Comparative Data

Part of the book series: Handbook of Sensory Physiology ((1536,volume 7 / 3 / 3 A))

Abstract

A constant feature of recordings from neurones of the sensory side of the nervous system is the occurrence of impulses in the absence of the appropriate stimuli. This activity has sometimes been called “spontaneous” (Granit, 1955) but the term while operationally useful becomes gradually less appropriate as more is learned about the causation of the activity. In the visual system, the activity in complete darkness merges gradually with the activity at progressively increasing levels of uniform background illumination and poses the same kind of problem for signalling. One therefore prefers the more generally applicable term, maintained discharge, to unify the description and analysis under a wide variety of conditions. “Ongoing” discharge is usually synonymous, but “background” discharge is frequently employed to describe the low amplitude activity of more distant units accompanying the recording of a single neurone.

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  1. Canberra, Australia

    William R. Levick

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  1. William R. Levick
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Richard Jung

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© 1973 Springer-Verlag, Berlin · Heidelberg

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Levick, W.R. (1973). Maintained Discharge in the Visual System and its Role for Information Processing. In: Jung, R. (eds) Central Processing of Visual Information A: Integrative Functions and Comparative Data. Handbook of Sensory Physiology, vol 7 / 3 / 3 A. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-65352-0_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-65352-0_8

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-65354-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-65352-0

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