Quantitative analysis of brain optical images with 2D C0 complexity measure.

Optical imaging based on intrinsic signals is a powerful method to visualize the activities of neural assembly in the cortex of animals in vivo, especially the detailed functional architecture of the visual cortex. Here, a new index, two-dimensional (2D) C0 complexity has been used to give a quantitative measure of the spatial pattern of the neural activity in orientation maps optically recorded from the visual cortex of cats globally. Results show that 2D C0 complexity could be employed to reveal the dynamic process of generating an orientation map in the visual cortex, and describe the variance of the neural responses in cortical area 17 under high and normal intraocular pressure. This suggests that 2D C0 could be used as a new quantitative measure for analyzing the intrinsic signal optical images.