Topology Processing of Retinotopic Maps

Retinotopic map, the map between visual inputs on the retina and neuronal activation in brain visual areas, is one of the central topics in visual neuroscience. For human observers, the map is typically obtained by analyzing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signals of cortical responses to slowly moving visual stimuli on the retina. Biological evidences show the retinotopic mapping is topology-preserving/topological (i.e. keep the neighboring relationship after human brain process) within each visual region. Unfortunately, due to limited spatial resolution and the signal-noise ratio of fMRI, state of art retinotopic map is not topological. The topic was to model the topology-preserving condition mathematically, fix non-topological retinotopic map with numerical methods, and improve the quality of retinotopic maps. The impose of topological condition, benefits several applications. With the topological retinotopic maps, one may have a better insight on human retinotopic maps, including better cortical magnification factor quantification, more precise description of retinotopic maps, and potentially better exam ways of in Ophthalmology clinic.