The Relationship between Cortical Magnification Factor and Population Receptive Field Size in Human Visual Cortex: Constancies in Cortical Architecture

Receptive field (RF) sizes and cortical magnification factor (CMF) are fundamental organization properties of the visual cortex. At increasing visual eccentricity, RF sizes increase and CMF decreases. A relationship between RF size and CMF suggests constancies in cortical architecture, as their product, the cortical representation of an RF (point image), may be constant. Previous animal neurophysiology studies of this question yield conflicting results. Here, we use fMRI to determine the relationship between the population RF (pRF) and CMF in humans. In average and individual data, the product of CMF and pRF size, the population point image, is near constant, decreasing slightly with eccentricity in V1. Interhemisphere and subject variations in CMF, pRF size, and V1 surface area are correlated, and the population point image varies less than these properties. These results suggest a V1 cortical processing architecture of approximately constant size between humans. Up the visual hierarchy, to V2, V3, hV4, and LO1, the population point image decreases with eccentricity, and both the absolute values and rate of change increase. PRF sizes increase between visual areas and with eccentricity, but when expressed in V1 cortical surface area (i.e., corticocortical pRFs), they are constant across eccentricity in V2/V3. Thus, V2/V3, and to some degree hV4, sample from a constant extent of V1. This may explain population point image changes in later areas. Consequently, the constant factor determining pRF size may not be the relationship to the local CMF, but rather pRF sizes and CMFs in visual areas from which the pRF samples.