Orientation-selective Responses in the Mouse Lateral Geniculate Nucleus

Abstract

The dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN) receives visual information from the retina and transmits it to the cortex. In this study, we made extracellular recordings in the dLGN of both anesthetized and awake mice, and found that a surprisingly high proportion of cells were selective for stimulus orientation. The orientation selectivity of dLGN cells was unchanged after silencing the visual cortex pharmacologically, indicating that it is not due to cortical feedback. The orientation tuning of some dLGN cells correlated with their elongated receptive fields, while in others orientation selectivity was observed despite the fact that their receptive fields were circular, suggesting that their retinal input might already be orientation selective. Consistently, we revealed orientation/axis-selective ganglion cells in the mouse retina using multielectrode arrays in an in vitro preparation. Furthermore, the orientation tuning of dLGN cells was largely maintained at different stimulus contrasts, which could be sufficiently explained by a simple linear feedforward model. We also compared the degree of orientation selectivity in different visual structures under the same recording condition. Compared with the dLGN, orientation selectivity is greatly improved in the visual cortex, but is similar in the superior colliculus, another major retinal target. Together, our results demonstrate prominent orientation selectivity in the mouse dLGN, which may potentially contribute to visual processing in the cortex.

Retinal and Tectal "Driver-Like" Inputs Converge in the Shell of the Mouse Dorsal Lateral Geniculate Nucleus

“…Like core neurons, shell neurons receive input from the cortex (gray, RS) on their more distal dendrites, but their proximal dendrites are innervated by convergent input from direction-selective (DS) retinal ganglion cells (blue, RLP; CruzMartín et al, 2014), as well as the superior colliculus (red, RM). Presumably, the integration of DS retinal and SC inputs underlies emergent direction-selective properties of dorsolateral shell neurons (Marshel et al, 2012;Piscopo et al, 2013;Scholl et al, 2013;Zhao et al, 2013). Shell neurons project to layer I [current results as well as those of Cruz-Martín et al (2014)], where they contact the dendrites of non-GABAergic pyramidal cells.…”

“…In contrast, the proximal dendrites of shell neurons receive convergent input from both direction-selective ganglion cells (Huberman et al, 2009;Kay et al, 2011;Rivlin-Etzion et al, 2011;Dhande et al, 2013;Cruz-Martín et al, 2014) and the SC. Presumably, the integration of these two inputs underlies emergent directionselective properties of dorsolateral shell neurons (Marshel et al, 2012;Piscopo et al, 2013;Scholl et al, 2013;Zhao et al, 2013).…”

“…In rodents, TG projections are confined to the dorsolateral shell, a thin lamina that resides just beneath the optic tract (OT; Reese, 1988;Grubb and Thompson, 2004). This region is innervated by retinal ganglion cells that are sensitive to the direction of visual motion [direction-selective ganglion cells (DSGCs); Huberman et al, 2009;Kay et al, 2011;Rivlin-Etzion et al, 2011;Dhande et al, 2013;Cruz-Martín et al, 2014] and also contains dLGN cells that exhibit direction-selective responses (Marshel et al, 2012;Piscopo et al, 2013;Scholl et al, 2013;Zhao et al, 2013). Such convergence suggests that TG projections participate in coding the direction of visual stimulus movement.…”

Oriented collagen fibers direct tumor cell intravasation

“…6 B, 3). The major cell intravasation exhibited a collective behavior in the form of "single stream" branches (36). The cell intravasation speed was about 3 μm/h.…”

Ambient illumination switches contrast preference of specific retinal processing streams

“…Based on this model, RGCs switching from ON pref to OFF pref were separated into non-direction-selective Sw1-RGCs and direction-selective Sw2-RGCs. Beyond Sw2-RGCs, direction-and orientation-selective RGCs were identified as neurons with DSI Ͼ 0.33 and a combination of OSI Ͼ 0.33 and DSI Ͻ 0.33, respectively (Piscopo et al 2013;Zhao et al 2013).…”