ABSTRACT
Lateral inhibition is simultaneously a biological principle and a mathematical description of a biological neural network. The concept of lateral inhibition arose in the extensive experimental research of H. K. Hartline and colleagues on the facetted compound eye of the familiar "Horseshoe crab" Limulus. A pattern of organization of inhibitory surround concentric with or adjacent to the excitatory center, or region, resembles the lateral inhibition. The linear lateral inhibition is a statement of connections, and requires a solution to define a receptive field. The linear receptive field is the output of the discrete spatial lateral inhibitory filter for a Dirac delta function visual space input. A specific nonlinearity found in several receptive fields of visual interneurons is a multiplicative interaction between interdependent points in the field. From the standpoint of a neural network and pre- or post-synaptic modulation of conductance, a nonlinear model possessing multiplicative properties can be developed.
