Classification of columnar and salt-and-pepper organization in mammalian visual cortex

In mammalian visual cortex, neural tuning to stimulus orientation is organized in either columnar1 or salt- and-pepper2 patterns across species. This is often considered to reflect disparate mechanisms of cortical development across mammalian taxa. However, it is unknown whether different cortical architectures are generated by species-specific mechanisms3,4, or simply originate from the variation of biological parameters within a universal principle of development5-8. We analysed neural parameters in eight mammalian species and found that cortical organization is predictable by a single factor: the retino-cortical mapping ratio. We show that a Nyquist sampling model explains parametric division of the patterns with high accuracy and that simulations of controlled mapping conditions reproduce both types of organization. Our results explain the origin of distinct cortical circuits under a universal development process.