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Functional impact of primary visual cortex deactivation on subcortical target structures in the thalamus and midbrain
Author(s) -
Rushmore R. Jarrett,
Payne Bertram R.,
Lomber Stephen G.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of comparative neurology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.855
H-Index - 209
eISSN - 1096-9861
pISSN - 0021-9967
DOI - 10.1002/cne.20597
Subject(s) - superior colliculus , neuroscience , visual cortex , thalamus , biology , midbrain , orientation column , cortex (anatomy) , superior colliculi , retinotopy , visual system , nucleus , functional specialization , geniculate , lateral geniculate nucleus , anatomy , central nervous system , striate cortex
The functional relationships between the primary visual cortex and its major subcortical target structures have long been a subject of interest. We studied these relationships by using localized cooling deactivation to silence portions of primary visual cortex and measuring 2‐deoxyglucose (2DG) uptake to assess neural activity in subcortical and midbrain targets. We focused analysis on the largest subcortical targets of primary visual cortex: the superior colliculus (SC), the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus of the thalamus (dLGN), and the lateral division of the lateral posterior nucleus of the thalamus (LP L ). We found that localized cooling of different regions of primary visual cortex caused specific decreases in 2DG uptake in target structures such that the location of 2DG decrease varied according to joint retinotopy, and the magnitude of the decreases in target structures was associated with the amount of cooled cortex. In addition, we found that the impact of cortical cooling was more profound on the SC than on the dLGN. The functional impact of cortical deactivations on the LP L was weak for small deactivations but approximated the impact on the SC when deactivations were large. We discuss these findings in terms of neural circuits and in terms of drivers and modulators. J. Comp. Neurol. 488:414–426, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.