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Fig. 5.18. Ocular dominance and long-range lateral connections in the strabismic ocular dominance map. The strabismic simulation was otherwise identical to the normal case of Figures 5.15–5.17, except the inputs were presented at random positions in each eye. Compared with the normal case, the OD stripes are wider (c), and nearly all neurons are highly selective (e) and highly monocular (indicated by the wide separation of the peaks in the histogram d). As an example, the neuron shown with the small white square in (c) has the receptive fields shown in (b); the connections from the left eye are poorly organized and weak (indicated by medium gray). In (c), the white outline delineates the strongest lateral inhibitory connections to this neuron. Unlike in the normal case, these connections include only monocular neurons responding to the same eye (visible in the weight histogram in (a)), and strictly follow the ocular dominance stripes. The connections are strongest in the immediate vicinity of the neuron, but not much weaker even near the stripe boundaries (a). Overall, strabismus changes the map organization, RFs, and lateral connections much like it does experimentally in animals (Löwel 1994; Löwel and Singer 1992; Figure 5.2).