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Cortical Maps: Activity-Dependent Development

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Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience

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Synonyms

Computational maps; Self-organizing maps; Topographic maps

Definition

The term “cortical map” refers to the existence of a nonrandom relationship between the position of a neuron in the cerebral cortex and the value of some property that can be assigned to it on the basis of physiological or anatomical tests. Typically the property in question is a receptive field parameter of a sensory neuron, e.g., the position in space of the receptive field of a visual sensory neuron, or the color of a stimulus that activates it, but it might also be a projective field, e.g., the position in the body of a muscle or group of muscles activated by neurons in motor cortex, or, more speculatively, some aspect of knowledge or behavior coded for, or produced, by activity in single neurons or groups of neighboring neurons (perhaps as measured by fMRI experiments). A further qualification is that map properties often remain constant in value with depth in the cortex and vary only with lateral...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Nicholas Swindale

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  1. Nicholas Swindale
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Correspondence to Nicholas Swindale .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Dieter Jaeger

  2. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Florida International University, Miami, Florida, USA

    Ranu Jung

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Swindale, N. (2014). Cortical Maps: Activity-Dependent Development. In: Jaeger, D., Jung, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_670-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_670-1

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