Geniculate orientation biases seen with moving sine wave gratings: implications for a model of simple cell afferent connectivity.

Orientation bias of cat dorsal lateral geniculate (LGN) neurones varied with the spatial frequency of a moving sine wave grating. At low spatial frequencies there was little orientation bias, whereas near the high-frequency limit, the dependence on orientation was marked. It is proposed that, if such cells were to drive the cortical inhibitory interneurones responsible for the orientation sensitivity of striate simple cells, it would explain many distinguishing features of cortical cells besides their orientation sensitivity.