Reorganisation of Somatosensory Cortex after Tactile Training

Part of Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 8 (NIPS 1995)

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Authors

Rasmus Petersen, John Taylor

Abstract

Topographic maps in primary areas of mammalian cerebral cortex reor(cid:173) ganise as a result of behavioural training. The nature of this reorgani(cid:173) sation seems consistent with the behaviour of competitive neural net(cid:173) works, as has been demonstrated in the past by computer simulation. We model tactile training on the hand representation in primate somato(cid:173) sensory cortex, using the Neural Field Theory of Amari and his col(cid:173) leagues. Expressions for changes in both receptive field size and mag(cid:173) nification factor are derived, which are consistent with owl monkey ex(cid:173) periments and make a prediction which goes beyond them.