Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Purushothaman, Gopathy
• Marion, Roan
• Li, Keji
• Casagrande, Vivien A

Titel

Gating and control of primary visual cortex by pulvinar

Ist Teil von

• Nature neuroscience, 2012-06, Vol.15 (6), p.905-912

Ort / Verlag

New York: Nature Publishing Group US

Erscheinungsjahr

2012

Quelle

PBSC : Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection - Journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• It has generally been thought that the primary visual cortex (V1) receives its driving input via the lateral geniculate nucleus and is modulated by input from the lateral pulvinar nucleus. Using several different techniques to manipulate lateral pulvinar activity, the authors report that the lateral pulvinar is able to gate information outflow from V1. The primary visual cortex (V1) receives its driving input from the eyes via the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) of the thalamus. The lateral pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus also projects to V1, but this input is not well understood. We manipulated lateral pulvinar neural activity in prosimian primates and assessed the effect on supra-granular layers of V1 that project to higher visual cortex. Reversibly inactivating lateral pulvinar prevented supra-granular V1 neurons from responding to visual stimulation. Reversible, focal excitation of lateral pulvinar receptive fields increased the visual responses in coincident V1 receptive fields fourfold and shifted partially overlapping V1 receptive fields toward the center of excitation. V1 responses to regions surrounding the excited lateral pulvinar receptive fields were suppressed. LGN responses were unaffected by these lateral pulvinar manipulations. Excitation of lateral pulvinar after LGN lesion activated supra-granular layer V1 neurons. Thus, lateral pulvinar is able to powerfully control and gate information outflow from V1.