What does polarity inversion of extrastriate activity tell us about striate contributions to the early VEP? A comment on Ales et al. (2010)

Recently, a forward-model simulation study demonstrated that the upper and lower visual field projections to extrastriate visual cortical areas V2 and V3 have polarity-inverted electrical scalp projections, a property famously associated with potentials generated in primary visual cortex (V1) (Ales et al., 2010a). The authors use this finding, along with other findings from fMRI-constrained source modeling, to argue that the initial component “C1” of the human visual evoked potential may not be generated in V1 as has been widely believed, but may instead come from V2/V3. Here, we examine the validity of this claim with respect to the full set of anatomical and electrophysiological factors comprising the unabridged “cruciform” model linking C1 to V1. We find that the simulations in their current form do not present a valid test of the model, nor are their results inconsistent with it. We also review non-human primate neurophysiology findings that support the C1-V1 principle, and that can and should be taken into account in assessing the validity of constrained source models of human EEG in general.