The nature of afferents from the large dorsal neck muscles that project to the superior colliculus in the cat.

Abrahams, V. C.; Turner, Christopher J.

doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1981.sp013916

Cited by 12 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Assuming that proprioceptors within the soft tissues of the neck are the primary source of head-on-body information, what then are the possible routes by which this information accesses the SC? Subcortical routes are certainly plausible, given the effects of neck muscle stimulation on SC activity in anesthetized cats (Abrahams and Rose 1975;Abrahams and Turner 1981) and the termination of neck muscle afferents in brain stem areas, which themselves project to the primate SC (Edney and Porter 1986). However, neck proprioceptive information is commonly combined with vestibular information at many subcortical centers, including the vestibular nuclei and cerebellum (for review, see Richmond and Corneil 2001), yet the apparent selective sensitivity of SC neurons to proprioceptive stimulation requires segregation of proprioceptive and vestibular information.…”

Section: Possible Sources and Routes Of Head-position Input To The Sumentioning

confidence: 99%

Representation of Horizontal Head-on-Body Position in the Primate Superior Colliculus

Nagy

2010

Journal of Neurophysiology

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Movement-related activity within the superior colliculus (SC) represents the desired displacement of an impending gaze shift. This representation must ultimately be transformed into position-based reference frames appropriate for coordinated eye-head gaze shifts. Parietal areas that project to the SC are modulated by the initial position of both the eye-re-head and head-re-body and SC activity is modulated by eye-re-head position. These considerations led us to investigate whether SC activity is modulated by the head-re-body position. We recorded activity from movement-related SC neurons while head-restrained monkeys performed a delayed-saccade task. Across blocks of trials, the horizontal position of the body was rotated under a space-fixed head to three to five different positions spanning +/-25 degrees . We observed a significant influence of body-under-head position on SC activity in 50/60 neurons. This influence was expressed predominantly as a linear gain field, scaling task-related SC activity without changing the location of the response field (linear gain fields explained >/=20% of the variance in neural activity in approximately 50% of our sample). Smaller nonlinear modulations were also observed in roughly 30% of our sample. SC activity was equally likely to increase or decrease as the body was rotated to the side of neuronal recording and we found no systematic relationship between the directionality or magnitude of the linear gain field with recording location in the SC. We conclude that a signal conveying head-re-body position is present in the SC. Although the functional significance remains open, our findings are consistent with the SC contributing to a displacement-to-position transformation for oculomotor control.

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Section: Possible Sources and Routes Of Head-position Input To The Sumentioning

confidence: 99%

Representation of Horizontal Head-on-Body Position in the Primate Superior Colliculus

Nagy

2010

Journal of Neurophysiology

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“…However, muscle spindles can only account for a minority of the small myelinated fibres and the peripheral origin of the remainder has never been determined. The nature of the sensory receptors supplied by these axons became of particular interest when electrophysiological experiments showed that projections from cervical dorsal rami * Present address: Department of Physiology, University College, Gower Street, London WClE 6BT,UK. V. C. ABRAHAMS, B. LYNN AND F. J. R. RICHMOND to the superior colliculus and the spinal nucleus of the Vth cranial nerve (Abrahams & Yokota, 1979;Abrahams & Turner, 1981) originated from myelinated afferents with a high threshold for electrical excitation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Organization and sensory properties of small myelinated fibres in the dorsal cervical rami of the cat.

Abrahams¹,

Lynn²,

Richmond³

1984

The Journal of Physiology

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SUMMARY1. A study using both anatomical dissection and electrophysiological recording has been made to analyse sensory components of the cervical dorsal rami in the cat. Particular attention has been paid to the physiological properties ofGroup III muscle afferents.2. The dorsal rami from C2 to C4 are composed of many nerve bundles that contain afferents from both muscle and skin. Bundles containing only cutaneous and only muscle afferents were identified and found to follow a relatively consistent pattern of organization within the ramus.3. In nerve bundles serving the biventer cervicis muscle, a population of Group III afferent fibres was identified that responded to strong localized pressure or localized stretch. Their receptive fields were generally small and situated on the muscle borders or in tendinous inscriptions. Such units comprised 73 % of those with conduction velocities less than 20 m/s.4. Group III afferent fibres from neck muscles fired readily to intramuscular 6 % sodium chloride, but were mostly not sensitive to bradykinin injected locally or intra-arterially.

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“…The effectiveness of a number of stimuli, including natural stimuli to activate output neurones of the superior colliculus has also been investigated and the nature of input from neck muscle receptors has also been re-examined. These latter studies were prompted by recent findings (Abrahams & Turner, 1981;Abrahams, Lynn & Richmond, 1984) which suggested that the extensive nuchal input to the superior colliculus arises not from neck muscle as originally supposed (Abrahams & Rose, 1975 a), but from cutaneous receptors. Some preliminary accounts of this work have appeared Abrahams, Clinton & Downey, 1986).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Somatosensory projections to the superior colliculus of the anaesthetized cat.

Abrahams¹,

Clinton²,

Downey³

1988

The Journal of Physiology

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SUMMARY1. Experiments in anaesthetized cats have shown that the superior colliculus receives deep afferent input from the forelimb and hindlimb, but not from the large superficial neck muscles.2. Neuronal activity in the superior colliculus is readily elicited by electrical stimulation of C2 and C3 cutaneous nerves. A significant proportion of neurones so activated have multiple receptive fields and some with no identifiable receptive fields in regions innervated by C2 and C3 nerves have receptive fields elsewhere on the body surface. Many collicular neurones activated by C2 and C3 stimulation had no identifiable receptive fields.3. Natural stimuli to the limbs, hitherto believed to activate only cutaneous receptors, are sufficient to activate deep receptors which contribute to the neuronal responses in the superior colliculus elicited by the natural stimulus. These same natural stimuli set up transmitted vibration adequate to excite receptors some distance from the applied stimulus.4. No evidence was found for a rigorous somatotopy in the superior colliculus. The great majority of neurones received trigeminal input which is widely distributed throughout the superior colliculus.5. Tactile stimuli to the face are most effective in eliciting unit activity in the superior colliculus and many neurones activated by these stimuli were shown to be tectospinal neurones. In particular, the specialized receptors of the face, including the glabrous skin of the snout (the planum nasale) and the vibrissae, are major sources of input to collicular neurones including tectospinal neurones.6. It is suggested that a major role of the superior colliculus is in the organization of head movements associated with the use of the specialized receptor organs of the face in exploratory behaviours. The superior colliculus may also be involved in the organization of aversion movements of the head.

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The nature of afferents from the large dorsal neck muscles that project to the superior colliculus in the cat.

Cited by 12 publications

References 26 publications

Representation of Horizontal Head-on-Body Position in the Primate Superior Colliculus

Representation of Horizontal Head-on-Body Position in the Primate Superior Colliculus

Organization and sensory properties of small myelinated fibres in the dorsal cervical rami of the cat.

Somatosensory projections to the superior colliculus of the anaesthetized cat.

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