Table 1.
Cross-species similarities in the basic organization of the visual system
| Organizational features of the visual system | Higher mammals (cat/primate) | Rodents (mouse) |
|---|---|---|
| Limited functional binocular convergence in the LGN | Neurons in the LGN are monocular, with binocular responses confined to the koniocellular layer (Zeater et al., 2015; Dougherty et al., 2019) | Few functionally binocular neurons were identified in the dLGN (Bauer et al., 2021) |
| Fovea and fovea-like region in the visual cortex | The foveal region exhibits smaller population receptive fields (pRFs) and enhanced spatial resolution (Godat et al., 2022) | Cortical “focea” region shows smaller pRFs and improved visual spatial resolution, largely overlapping with binocular visual cortical region (van Beest et al., 2021) |
| OD columns | Well-defined OD columns extend vertically across cortical layers and are most pronounced in L4 (Hubel and Wiesel, 1968; Crair et al., 2001) | Neurons preferring ipsilateral eye stimulation form discrete clusters that are most prominent in L4 and extend into L2/3 and L5, giving rise to columnar organization (Goltstein et al., 2025) |
| Spatial organization of orientation-tuned neurons | Orientation-selective neurons form iso-orientation columns organized in pinwheel-like map across cortical surface (Bonhoeffer and Grinvald, 1993) | Local clustering of V1 neurons with similar tuning preferences across layers (Ringach et al., 2016), with a global map of orientation bias organized around a single pinwheel across visual cortical areas (Fahey et al., 2019) |
| Covariation of tuning properties | Orientation selectivity, spatial frequency (SF) preference, and response complexity covary; sharper orientation tuning with higher SF and complexity (Chen et al., 2020) | Similar covariation relationship: neurons with higher orientation selectivity tend to prefer higher spatial frequencies and exhibit greater response complexity (Tan et al., 2020) |
