Properties of concentrically organized X and Y ganglion cells of macaque retina

Abstract

1. Macaque retinal ganglion cells having concentrically organized receptive fields were classified as X- or Y-cells on the basis of the linearity or nonlinearity of their spatial summation to a "null" test of alternating contrast and drifting gratings. 2. When an alternating-phase, bipartite field positioned at the middle of the receptive field was used as a stimulus, X-cells had a null position, whereas Y-cells showed a doubling of the response frequency. When drifting sine-wave gratings of low contrast were used as a stimulus, X-cells showed a periodic modulation of their discharge having the same mean value for different spatial frequencies, whereas Y-cells showed a large increase in the mean value of their discharges. 3. X-cells had opponent-color responses that received cone-specific signals, i.e., center and surround responses were mediated by input from spectrally different types of cone, whereas Y-cells had broad-band spectral responses receiving mixed-cone signals, i.e., center and surround responses were totally or partly mediated by input from the same type(s) of cone. In most Y-cells, the spatially opponent responses from the center and the surround were mediated by the same types of cone and were thus spectrally nonopponent; other Y-cells showed spectral opponency, since one of the types of cone mediating responses of one region of the receptive field (e.g., center) was absent in the responses of the other region (e.g., surround). 4. X- and Y-cells projected to the lateral geniculate body. Opponent-color X- and Y-cells did not project to the superior colliculus, whereas a fraction of spectrally non-opponent Y-cells projected to this structure. 5. X-cells tended to have longer conduction latencies, less transient responses to small stimuli, and a more central retinal distribution than Y-cells; these differences, however, represented tendencies and not invariant properties. 6. The results show that the X/Y dichotomy of ganglion cells is present in the retina of macaques and indicate that the degree of the linearity of spatial summation of incoming cone signals to the cells is related to the degree of cone specificity of spectral inputs to the receptive-field mechanisms.

Hemispheric asymmetry in temporal resolution: Contribution of the magnocellular pathway

“…As shown in Figure 2 for the 40-msec condition, this disruptive effect was larger for the RVF-LH trials than for the LVF-RH trials and eliminated the RVF-LH advantage. Because the red background is known to produce suppressive effects on magnocellular function (de Monasterio, 1978;de Monasterio & Schein, 1980;Livingstone & Hubel, 1984;Wiesel & Hubel, 1966), these results support the hypothesis that processing of the magnocellular pathway contributes to the LH advantage for fine temporal resolution.…”

“…The disruptive effect of the red background is based on the fact that the magnocellular pathway selectively contains cells that have receptive fields with a tonic red surround mechanism (type IV cells). That is, imposing diffuse red light causes a tonic suppression of these cells' excitatory activities (see de Monasterio, 1978;de Monasterio & Schein, 1980;Livingstone & Hubel, 1984;Wiesel & Hubel, 1966).…”

Processing of color, form and disparity information in visual areas VP and V2 of ventral extrastriate cortex in the macaque monkey

“…By the retinal ganglion cell (RGC) stage, several cell types have emerged that transmit chromatic information (DeMonasterio, 1978;DeMonasterio and Gouras, 1975). These relay through a corresponding set of LGN cells without obvious transformation of information content (Wiesel and Hubel, 1966).…”

Identification and Characterization of a Y-Like Primate Retinal Ganglion Cell Type

“…Cells with similar visual response properties, the Y-cells, were first observed more than forty years ago in the cat retina (Enroth-Cugell and Robson, 1966). The original observation of the cat Y-cells was followed by a decades-long search for the counterpart of these cells both in the primate retina and in the primate lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) (de Monasterio, 1978;Kaplan and Shapley, 1982;Derrington and Lennie, 1984;Blakemore and Vital-Durand, 1986;Benardete et al, 1992;Levitt et al, 2001;White et al, 2002). Until this report, no clear evidence had been found for a distinct type of Y-like retinal ganglion cell in the primate.…”