scholarly journals Correlation between spatio-temporal structure of receptive fields and velocity tuning of cat's superior colliculus neurons

Author(s):  
Wrobel Andrzej
1975 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. W. Oyster ◽  
E. S. Takahashi

It has been shown that cells in the superficial layers of the superior colliculus exhibit response decrements when a visual stimulus is repeated. These response decrements have some of the properties associated with habituation, in particular, 1) spontaneous recovery and 2) habituation rate dependent on stimulus frequency. These observations have been made in two classes of neurons; direction-selective cells and so-called modified concentric cells. All of these neurons had small receptive fields and well-defined response properties. Some neurons in both the direction-selective and modified concentric groups do not show habituation. On the basis of area-threshold curves and other observations, it is suggested that those neurons which habituate possess strong inhibitory inputs which are weak or lacking in thenonhabituating neurons. This generalization leads to a hypothesis that inhibition in the superior colliculus has a long decay time and that a response to a given stimulus is affected by inhibition activated by preceding stimuli.


1978 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. 1359-1372 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. C. Fox ◽  
K. L. Chow ◽  
A. S. Kelly

1. The receptive-field characteristics of superior colliculus neurons were studied in rabbit pups that had one eyelid sutured prior to eye opening. Units recorded from the superior colliculus (SC) receiving input from the unsutured eye provided normal developmental data, and those from the colliculus receiving input from the sutured eye were used to study the effect of visual deprivation. 2. A total of 1,054 cells recorded from 89 animals ranging in age from 7 to 35 days were obtained, 514 cells in the normal colliculus and 540 cells in the deprived colliculus. During normal development, three nonoriented cell types (concentric, uniform, motion) showed a progressive increase in relative frequency of occurrence, starting at about 7 days and reaching the adult level at about 15 days. Directionally selective cells developed slightly later, reaching an adult level at 3 wk. Oriented directional cells were the slowest to mature, requiring about 4 wk to reach the final level. 3. Eyelid suturing significantly affected the oriented directional cell development; these cells developed at a normal rate for about 3 wk, then rather abruptly began to decrease in number; a stable relative frequency of about one-fourth the normal value was reached at about 4 wk. A corresponding increase in the relative number of indefinite cells to above the normal level also occurred. In contrast, the development of nonoriented cells and directionally selective cells was not affected by the deprivation. 4. The development of rabbit superior colliculus receptive fields was found to be, in general, similar to development of kitten SC receptive fields. It also correlates well with developmental changes seen in rabbit ganglion cell receptive fields and with anatomical changes in developing rabbit SC. Indirect support is given for the hypothesis that changes seen in SC with deprivation are secondary to changes in the visual cortex.


Author(s):  
Caroline A. Miller ◽  
Laura L. Bruce

The first visual cortical axons arrive in the cat superior colliculus by the time of birth. Adultlike receptive fields develop slowly over several weeks following birth. The developing cortical axons go through a sequence of changes before acquiring their adultlike morphology and function. To determine how these axons interact with neurons in the colliculus, cortico-collicular axons were labeled with biocytin (an anterograde neuronal tracer) and studied with electron microscopy.Deeply anesthetized animals received 200-500 nl injections of biocytin (Sigma; 5% in phosphate buffer) in the lateral suprasylvian visual cortical area. After a 24 hr survival time, the animals were deeply anesthetized and perfused with 0.9% phosphate buffered saline followed by fixation with a solution of 1.25% glutaraldehyde and 1.0% paraformaldehyde in 0.1M phosphate buffer. The brain was sectioned transversely on a vibratome at 50 μm. The tissue was processed immediately to visualize the biocytin.


1983 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 674-685 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Z. Wise ◽  
D. R. Irvine

1. The auditory responses of 207 single neurons in the intermediate and deep layers of the superior colliculus (SC) of barbiturate -or chloralose-anesthetized cats were recorded extracellularly. Sealed stimulating systems incorporating calibrated probe microphone assemblies were employed to present tone- and noise-burst stimuli. 2. All acoustically activated neurons responded with onset responses to noise bursts. Of those neurons also tested with tonal stimuli, approximately 30% were unresponsive over the frequency range tested (0.1-40 kHz), while the others had higher thresholds to tones than to noise. 3. Details of frequency responsiveness were obtained for 55 neurons; 21 were broadly tuned, while 34 were sharply tuned with clearly defined characteristic frequencies (CFs). All sharply tuned neurons had CFs greater than or equal to 10 kHz. 4. The majority of neurons (81%) responded with latencies in the range 8-20 ms; only 11% of neurons had latencies greater than 30 ms. 5. Binaural response properties were examined for 165 neurons. The great majority (79%) received monaural excitatory input only from the contralateral ear (EO). However, most EO cells were binaurally influenced, the contralateral response being either inhibited (EO/I; 96 of 131 units) or facilitated (EO/F; 33 of 131 units) by simultaneous ipsilateral stimulation. Small subgroups were monaurally excited by either ear (EE cells; 8%) or were unresponsive monaurally but responded strongly to binaural stimulation (OO/F cells; 7%). 6. EO/I, EO/F, and OO/F neurons showed characteristic forms of sensitivity to interaural intensity differences (IIDs). The IID functions of EO/I neurons would be expected to produce large contralateral spatial receptive fields with clearly defined medial borders, such as have been described in studies of deep SC neurons employing free-field stimuli. 7. Preliminary evidence suggests a possible topographic organization of IID sensitivity in deep SC, such that the steeply sloping portion of the function (corresponding to the medial edge of the receptive field) is shifted laterally for EO/I neurons located more caudally in the nucleus. 8. The auditory properties of deep SC neurons are compared with previous reports and implications for the organization of auditory input are considered. The binaural properties and auditory spatial fields of deep SC neurons suggest that any representation of auditory space in this structure is unlikely to be based on restricted spatial fields.


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