Ocular Dominance Stripe Formation (2D)

This 2D companion to the ocular-dominance critical-period simulator keeps the same normalized Hebbian eye-competition rule and the same perineuronal-net "molecular brake" that closes the critical period as cortical age advances, but adds the mechanism the 3D per-column model deliberately leaves out: real cortex is spatially coupled. A Mexican-hat lateral interaction — short-range excitation between neighboring cortical columns, longer-range inhibition further out — is applied across a continuous 2D field, and starting from nothing but random noise it spontaneously self-organizes into the same kind of periodic left/right eye stripes seen in real primary visual cortex. Deprive one eye and watch the field's overall color balance shift while the stripe geometry itself persists; scrub cortical age to watch the critical period close the eye-competition term specifically (the stripe-forming lateral connections are left untouched, matching the neuroscience of when each circuit is laid down); or flip on ChABC to digest the nets and reopen full plasticity at any age.