Curvature-processing domains in primate V4.

Neurons in primate V4 exhibit various types of selectivity for contour shapes, including curves, angles, and simple shapes. How are these neurons organized in V4 remains unclear. Using intrinsic signal optical imaging and 2-photon calcium imaging, we observed submillimeter functional domains in V4 that contained neurons preferring curved contours over rectilinear ones. These curvature domains had similar sizes and response amplitudes as orientation domains but tended to separate from these regions. Within the curvature domains, neurons that preferred circles or curve orientations clustered further into finer-scale subdomains. Nevertheless, individual neurons also had a wide range of contour selectivity, and neighboring neurons exhibited a substantial diversity in shape tuning besides their common shape preferences. In strong contrast to V4, V1 and V2 didn't have such contour-shape-related domains. These findings highlight the importance and complexity of curvature processing in visual object recognition and the key functional role of V4 in this process.