Different ocular dominance map formation influenced by orientation preference columns in visual cortices

Abstract

In animal experiments, the observed orientation preference and ocular dominance columns in the visual cortex of the brain show various pattern types. Here, we show that the different visual map formations in various species are due to the crossover behavior in anisotropic systems composed of orientational and scalar components such as easy-plane Heisenberg models. We predict the transition boundary between different pattern types with the anisotropy as a main bifurcation parameter, which is consistent with experimental observations.