Cats reared in stroboscopic illumination: effects on receptive fields in visual cortex.

Cats were reared in a light-tight box in which the only source of illumination was a 9-musec strobe flash every 2 sec. This allowed them to experience visual form but they did not experience visual movement. Receptive-field properties of single units in area 17 of the visual cortex of cats reared in stroboscopic illumination (strobe-reared) were compared with properties of units in area 17 of normally reared cats. In strobe-reared cats both direction selectivity and orientation selectivity were greatly reduced relative to normally reared cats, and some units in the strobe-reared cats responded only to strobe flashes.