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Mapping the oculomotor system: the power of transneuronal labelling with rabies virus
Author(s) -
Graf Werner,
Gerrits Nicolaas,
YatimDhiba Najiya,
Ugolini Gabriella
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
european journal of neuroscience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.346
H-Index - 206
eISSN - 1460-9568
pISSN - 0953-816X
DOI - 10.1046/j.1460-9568.2002.01994.x
Subject(s) - neuroscience , oculomotor nucleus , eye movement , brainstem , saccade , rabies virus , oculomotor nerve , retrograde tracing , vestibulo–ocular reflex , psychology , midbrain , biology , rabies , central nervous system , virology
Neuronal networks underlying and related to horizontal eye movements were visualized by retrograde transneuronal tracing with rabies virus from the left medial rectus muscle in guinea pigs. Time‐sequenced labelling revealed distinct circuitries involved in particular oculomotor functions, i.e. vestibulo‐ocular reflex and saccade generation (brainstem circuitry), adaptive plasticity (cerebellar modules) and possibly motivation and navigation (limbic, hippocampal and cortical structures). Our results provide a first comprehensive road map of the oculomotor system that is unsurpassed by any previous tracing study. We report a number of unexpected findings that illustrate a much vaster and more complicated network for the control of the relatively simple horizontal eye movements than had been envisioned previously.