Spatial frequency selectivity of the human visual cortex estimated with pseudo-random visual evoked cortical potential (VECP)

Single-cell recordings in the primary visual cortex (V1) show neurons with spatial frequency (SF) tuning, which had different responses to chromatic and luminance stimuli. Visually evoked cortical potential (VECP) investigations have reported different spatial profiles. The current study aimed to investigate the spatial selectivity of V1 to simultaneous stimulus of chromatic and luminance contrasts. Compound stimuli temporally driven by m-sequences at 8 SFs were utilized to generate VECP records from thirty subjects (14 trichromats and 16 colorblind subjects). We extracted the second-order kernel, first and second slices (K2.1 and K2.2, respectively). Optimal SF, SF bandwidth, and high SF cut-off were estimated from the best-fitted functions to the VECP amplitude vs SF. For trichromats, K2.1 waveforms had a negative component (N1 K2.1) at 100 ms followed by a positive component (P1 K2.1). K2.2 waveforms also had a negative component (N1 K2.2) at 100 ms followed by a positive deflection (P1 K2.2). SF tuning of N1 K2.1 and N1 K2.2 had a band-pass profile, while the P1 K2.1 was low-pass tuned. P1 K2.1 optimal SF differed significantly from both other negative responses and from P1 K2.2. We found differences in the optimal SF, SF tuning and high SF cut-off among the VECP components. Dichromats had little or no response for all stimulus conditions. The absence of the responses in dichromats, the similarity between the high SF cut-off of the pseudorandom VECPs and psychophysical chromatic visual acuity, and presence of multiple SF tunings suggested that pseudorandom VECPs represented the activity of cells that responded preferentially to the chromatic component of the compound stimuli.