ABSTRACT
I use the term lateral inhibition collectively for a class of neuronal organizations, including reciprocal lateral inhibition, recurrent inhibition, and feed-forward lateral inhibition. Within a system of parallel pathways, as shown in Fig. 5.1, if the output from B inhibits its neighbors A and C, and B in turn is inhibited by their output, the organization will be called reciprocal lateral inhibition. If, in addition, the output from B also inhibits the firing of B itself, the organization is called recurrent inhibition. Feed-forward lateral inhibition is present in a system in which the output from b inhibits A and C, whereas the outputs from a and c inhibit B.
