PSY 3108 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Focal Dystonia, Spatial Frequency, Neuroplasticity
11 Dec 2016
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Receptive fields of cortical neurons- each cortical neuron receives inputs from a limited patch of skin. The shape and size of the rf varies according to the area of the body. Example- from the back the rfs are large, for the fingertips they are very small. The rfs also vary from one cortical area to another, becoming more complex in shape as one goes from s1 3 to s-11 or ppc. Columnar organization of somatosensory neurons- going downward through 6 layers of the cortex in one spot, one finds that neurons respond to the same location on the body and the same kind of mechanoreceptor. It is another example of parallel processing and is found in all sensory modalities. Neural plasticity- the organization of somatosensory cortex is not fixed. Evidence: area representing fingertip in monkeys increased in size after fingertip was heavily stimulated.
