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1 Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, Moffat Building, North Campus, Manchester M60 1QD, UK
| Abstract |
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(Received 18 May 2005;
accepted after revision 19 May 2005;
first published online 19 May 2005)
Corresponding author K. Grieve: Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, Moffat Building, North Campus, Manchester M60 1QD, UK. Email: ken.grieve{at}manchester.ac.uk
| Introduction |
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3% of axons course ipsilaterally and are known to make contact with cells in the ipsilateral dLGN. Within the dLGN this hidden lamina (Reese, 1988) of ipsilateral input represents some 3060 deg of frontal visual space (Sefton et al. 2004). This study reports an unusual aspect of the visual response properties of the cells in this region of the rat dLGN. Surprisingly, the majority of these cells appear to respond in a straightforward excitatory fashion to stimulation of either eye, making this binocular integration in the rat visual system unlike that in higher species such as the cat, where non-dominant eye responses are often a complex and much weaker mixture of excitation masked by overlying inhibition (Murphy & Sillito, 1989). | Methods |
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Single units were recorded in the dLGN of the right side only using tungsten in glass microelectrodes (Merrill & Ainsworth, 1972). The extracellular waveform was continuously monitored on a Gould 6000 series storage oscilloscope (see http://www.lds-group.com), and units were discriminated conventionally using amplifier, filter and spike trigger units from Neurolog (Digitimer Ltd, Welwyn Garden City, UK). Initially cells were driven qualitatively by hand-controlled stimuli using an ophthalmoscope or overhead projector. Quantitative visual stimuli comprised flashing spots and drifting gratings, and were delivered monocularly to the appropriate eye, under computer control, displayed on a flat screen monitor mounted on a custom fabricated arm which permitted accurate placement of the monitor in space relative to the rat's eye. The occluder placed over the unstimulated eye was constructed from a curved aluminium spoon, 2 mm in thickness, shaped to fit the facial contours of the rat. Stimuli were presented and responses recorded using the freely available Cortex software (http://www.cortex.salk.edu/). The display was placed between 14 and 28 cm from the eye, and the angular size of stimulus calculated by the software. Once the receptive field was located by hand the display was centred on the receptive field using a protocol of a flashed stimulus or patch of drifting grating located in 1 of 5 (in some cases 9) stimulus locations onscreen to determine the final position, the process being repeated iteratively. This process is best illustrated by the example of Fig. 1. In this case, a 10 deg diameter white stimulus was flashed in one of five locations, four at ± 15 deg XY from the centre, and the centre itself. It should be clear that the stimulus produced a significant off-only response at each of the peripheral locations, but a clear on response at the centre, indicating a well positioned location, the stimulus occupying the centre of the field only at the centre of the display. This location was then utilized for further testing. Off-line analysis was carried out using Matlab (http://www.mathworks.com) and Matoff (http://speed.nimh.nih.gov/matoff/matoff.html). Since this species lacks a fovea or area centralis, the locations of the receptive fields are measured in degrees from the vertical mid-line of the animal, centred on the horizontal (stereotaxic) projection of the mid-point of the eyes. Some of this work has been reported previously (Grieve & Sassaroli, 2004).
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| Results |
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Contralaterally driven cells
The standard protocol is illustrated in Figs 1 and 2 for a cell driven exclusively by the contralateral eye. Figure 1 shows the responses to a flashed spot of 10 deg in diameter, whose size was first established qualitatively. The PSTHs represent the responses to the spot in five positions on the monitor ranging from 15 deg, 15 deg (upper left) to 15 deg, 15 deg (lower right) with the centre PSTH derived from a stimulus centred on the middle of the screen (see Methods). Centred on this position, the size of the receptive field was then determined quantitatively as shown in Fig. 2. Circular spots of light ranging between 2 and 50 deg were flashed for 1 s (black bar beneath each PSTH). It is clear that this cell responded increasingly up to a peak value after which responses declined in magnitude typical of a cell which has a centresurround antagonistic field. The inset to the figure (Fig. 2B) illustrates the strength of this surround, showing the magnitude of the response with respect to spot size. Clearly spots greater than 1620 deg in diameter invoked increased inhibition, reducing response magnitude significantly. Notably, as seen in Fig. 1, it is possible to see pure surround responses from this cell with relatively large stimulus sizes (10 deg). More importantly, Fig. 2C shows the response of the cell firstly to a spot of 16 deg diameter flashed with the ipsilateral eye uncovered (it is interesting to note that the spontaneous activity of this cell was markedly reduced when the contralateral eye was covered) no response could be obtained; this was followed by a second stimulation using the contralateral eye at this point the cell was clearly still responsive. This is typical of the majority of the sample reported here cells in the dLGN exclusively driven by the contralateral eye, as expected; 22/30 cells were of this type. Within the population of 22 cells, 14 were of the ON subtype and 8 of the OFF subtype.
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Eight of 30 cells showed visual responses driven by the ipsilateral eye. While initially this was taken to be unsurprising, given the known anatomy of the rat dLGN, the example shown in Fig. 3 was surprising in that the cell was equally responsive to either eye. The left column of PSTHs illustrates the responses of this cell to spots of different diameter displayed monocularly to the ipsilateral eye. Unlike the cell shown in Figs 1 and 2, this was an OFF centre cell. In this case the size of the receptive was large, probably exceeding the maximum spot diameter displayed, 50 deg. The right column shows responses when only the contralateral eye was stimulated. In this case, in all respects, the spontaneous activity, response polarity and magnitude are similar to the ipsilaterally driven responses; in other words, it has the same receptive field characteristics. Purists may pick out the observation that the receptive field measured through the contralateral eye seems larger, with no response to the 6 deg diameter stimulus. Two points of protocol should be noted the contralaterally driven responses were recorded following the ipsilateral in time that is to say, while the spot sizes were appropriately interleaved within each set, the two sets were recorded sequentially, so that time elapsed between the left and right columns. Secondly, time did not permit the remapping of the second field the display was unmoved between contra- and ipsilateral stimulation. With these caveats accepted, the receptive fields measured through the two eyes are remarkably similar. A second example of this type is shown in Fig. 4A; the left and right columns show the responses of a cell to stimulation through the contralateral (left) and ipsilateral (right) eyes to a range of spot sizes (taken from a full range as illustrated in Figs 2 and 3). Again, the receptive field measured through either eye is very similar (note the secondary discharge following the main responses, typical of this cell). A third example is briefly illustrated in Fig. 4B. Here, an ON centre cell is stimulated with a drifting sinusoidal grating, first through the ipsilateral eye, then the contra-, and again through the ipsilateral eye. The cell responded equally well to stimulation through either eye. Of the population of eight cells, five were responsive to stimulation through either eye. Of the remaining three cells, critically, all, recorded in the early phase of the study, were not tested for responses to stimulation of the contralateral eye. Thus it remains possible that all cells responding to ipsilateral stimulation in this study would be equally responsive to stimulation of the contralateral eye, and would therefore be regarded as binocular. Within the population of eight cells, five were ON centre, three OFF centre. This proportion is similar to the proportion in the monocularly driven cell population (see above). The average receptive field size, measured in the ipsilateral eye, for this population of eight cells was 25 deg (± 1.7 deg), while the 22 cells driven exclusively by the contralateral eye only averaged 22 deg (± 0.8 deg), values which are not significantly different. Cells exclusively driven by the contralateral eye had receptive field locations up to 48 deg lateral from the animals mid-line in the horizontal plane (range, 25 deg into ipsilateral space to 48 deg contralateral space, average 19.6 ± 2.9 deg), while cells driven by the ipsilateral eye all had fields less than 30 deg from the mid-line (range,10 deg into ipsilateral space to 30 deg contralateral space, average 10.4 ± 3.2 deg), confirming that these cells had receptive fields in that region of space typically considered to be the region of binocular overlap in this species (Sefton et al. 2004).
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| Discussion |
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Evidence from the developing rat dLGN also supports the presence of binocular input to some cells although in the main supporting the view that dLGN cells received binocular inhibitory input, Ziburkus et al. (2003) also concluded that excitatory input were encountered far less frequently in the older animals, but were presumably still present. Given the small number of fibres carrying the input, and the technical differences in study based upon in vitro brain slices, these data are not inconsistent with the data presented here.
The retina of the rat is largely unspecialized, unlike the foveal development of higher species. Nevertheless, there are suggestions that the region of retina which provides this ipsilateral input may be different, containing a significantly higher proportion of the larger retinal ganglion cells (Dreher et al. 1991). However, at least as judged by the sorts of responses seen here (ON versus OFF, RF size, spontaneous activity, etc.), the receptive field properties of cells responding to the ipsilateral eye (or, more accurately, to both eyes) were not significantly different from those responding to contralateral alone, even when the retinal location of the contralaterally driven field occupied exclusively monocular space. The small eye and lack of a fovea in this species has made it difficult to compare directly the exact retinal positions of ipsi- and contralateral fields in these binocular cells. Indeed, the animals were both anaesthetized and neuromuscularly blocked, and the effects of neuromuscular block on ocular position in this species is not known. Nevertheless, since the binocular cells were responsive to the same frontal region of space in each case, it seems likely that this was due at least to substantial overlap, and the nature of the interaction between the two eyes at this level is currently under study.
Interestingly, it is known that, in the rat (albino and pigmented), a small number of retinal ganglion cells have bifurcating axons which project to both ipsi- and contralateral dLGN (Jeffrey et al. 1981; Kondo et al. 1993). While this may be the source of the responses reported in this study, there is as yet no direct available evidence to confirm this. Indeed, it remains possible that at least some binocular input to this nucleus is not of direct retinal origins, since the dLGN of the rat receives significant input from other brain structures, such as the parabigeminal nucleus (Turlejski et al. 1994; reviewed in Sefton et al. 2004). Nevertheless, there is significant binocular retinal overlap in this species, and a significant representation of this space in the visual cortex. Given the known optical properties of the rat eye (low acuity, small pupil, large depth of field, etc.; Wiesenfield & Branchek, 1976; Hughes, 1977, 1979), it would seem unlikely that high resolution binocular vision is used for stereopsis of the type seen in higher mammals. The data presented here suggest that, for whatever purpose, binocular integration in the primary visual pathway begins in this species at the level of the dLGN and these data represent the first demonstration of such binocular input in the mammalian dLGN.
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