The role of the superior colliculus in visually guided locomotion and visual orienting in the hamster

Mort, Elizabeth; Cairns, Sara J.; Hersch, Helen; Finlay, Barbara L.

doi:10.3758/bf03326442

Cited by 71 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Therefore, under more reflexive conditions the se quence of orienting in all vertebrates, and prey cap ture in the case of predatory animals, may be elicited by tectal circuits with their crude shape discrimina tion, but in situations requiring careful check, orien tation and approach are dependent on other (prob ably forebrain) circuits, as suggested by Schneider [1969] and Mort et al [1980],…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Configuration-Sensitive Visual Responses in the Superior Colliculus of the House Mouse (Mus musculus domesticus)

Manteuffel

Fiseifis²

1990

Brain Behav Evol

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In order to compare visual pattern discrimination by tectal neurons in distantly related vertebrate groups, collicular cells of mice were examined for their responses to each of three simple configurational stimuli commonly used in studies of amphibians. The stimuli consisted of a large square, a horizontal bar and a vertical bar moved at various velocities. Of the recorded units (n = 51), 30–50% significantly preferred the square to the other stimuli at medium (10°/s) and high (67°/s) velocities. Approximately 10% preferred the horizontal bar at these velocities. A significant discrimination between the horizontal and the vertical bar was found in 39% of the units at a velocity of 10°/s, and in 61% at a velocity of 67°/s. These response types are very similar to those found in amphibians; therefore, it is concluded that tectal configurational sensitivity may be a plesiomorphic tetrapod character resulting from basic properties of tectal neuronal circuitry.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Configuration-Sensitive Visual Responses in the Superior Colliculus of the House Mouse (Mus musculus domesticus)

Manteuffel

Fiseifis²

1990

Brain Behav Evol

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“…Not only is the brain redundantly organized in this regard (Lomber et al 2001;Schall 1997;Schiller et al 1979;Tehovnik et al 1994), but the loss of a superordinate function in a layered control architecture does not disable the system as a whole (Brooks 1986(Brooks , 1989Prescott et al 1999), just as a well organized army need not cease functioning on the loss of its commander. A macaque with experimental collicular lesions is not incapable of moving its eyes onto targets, but exhibits a reduced variety of eye and orienting movements and is indistractible, a common finding in other species as well (Albano & Wurtz 1978;Casagrande & Diamond 1974;Denny-Brown 1962; Goodale & Murison 1975;Merker 1980;Mort et al 1980;Schiller et al 1979;Schneider 1967). This may reflect a compromised scope and sophistication of target selection, and the role of the intact colliculus would accordingly instantiate the Penfield and Jasper conception of a highest integrative function which, while anatomically subcortical, is functionally supra-cortical.…”

Section: Target Selection In the Midbrainmentioning

confidence: 99%

Consciousness without a cerebral cortex: A challenge for neuroscience and medicine

Merker¹

2007

Behav Brain Sci

607

529

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A broad range of evidence regarding the functional organization of the vertebrate brain - spanning from comparative neurology to experimental psychology and neurophysiology to clinical data - is reviewed for its bearing on conceptions of the neural organization of consciousness. A novel principle relating target selection, action selection, and motivation to one another, as a means to optimize integration for action in real time, is introduced. With its help, the principal macrosystems of the vertebrate brain can be seen to form a centralized functional design in which an upper brain stem system organized for conscious function performs a penultimate step in action control. This upper brain stem system retained a key role throughout the evolutionary process by which an expanding forebrain - culminating in the cerebral cortex of mammals - came to serve as a medium for the elaboration of conscious contents. This highly conserved upper brainstem system, which extends from the roof of the midbrain to the basal diencephalon, integrates the massively parallel and distributed information capacity of the cerebral hemispheres into the limited-capacity, sequential mode of operation required for coherent behavior. It maintains special connective relations with cortical territories implicated in attentional and conscious functions, but is not rendered nonfunctional in the absence of cortical input. This helps explain the purposive, goal-directed behavior exhibited by mammals after experimental decortication, as well as the evidence that children born without a cortex are conscious. Taken together these circumstances suggest that brainstem mechanisms are integral to the constitution of the conscious state, and that an adequate account of neural mechanisms of conscious function cannot be confined to the thalamocortical complex alone.

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“…A lesion that impairs scanning would therefore be likely to have less effect on discrimination learning in rats than in animals with a better developed area centralis or a fovea. It is interesting to note that in hamsters, which have very similar retinae to rats (Tiao and Blakemore, 1976), collicular lesions can also disturb scanning but not discrimination learning (Mort, Cairns, Hersch and Finlay, 1980). This explanation of the present results may not be incompatible with observations that collicular lesions do impair discrimination learning in rats and hamsters in particular circumstances.…”

Section: I54mentioning

confidence: 57%

“…However, Dyer et al (1976) found no such impairment in a similar apparatus after collicular lesions in rats, and Mort et al (1980) failed to find an effect of collicular lesions on the path lengths of hamsters learning a difficult visual discrimination. Since the two animals in Schneider's study that showed very marked approach errors were the two with large cerebellar lesions (Schneider, 1966, pp.…”

Section: I54mentioning

confidence: 81%

Visual Discrimination Learning in Rats with Lesions of Superior Colliculus: Door-Push and Approach Errors in Modified Jumping Stand

Dean

Pope

1981

The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section B

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It has been suggested that, for some species, lesions of the superior colliculus affect visual discrimination learning, but only in certain conditions : (a) when problems are first learnt only after operation, or (b) when discriminanda require detailed scanning, or (c) when "approach" responses to the discriminanda are measured, rather than the response of actually touching them. These suggestions were examined in rats learning visual discriminations in a modified jumping-stand apparatus, after sustaining large lesions of the superior colliculus (and in some cases also of the pretectum). The lesions produced open-field hyperactivity and reduced exploration, indicating effective tectal damage, but the rats learnt a series of difficult discriminations in a door-push task as fast as normal rats, and they did not make more approach errors. Their main abnormality in the discrimination apparatus was that they looked less often between the stimulus doors before stepping across to one of them from the central platform. It is suggested that in rats, as in other animals, lesions of the superior colliculus disrupt the control of scanning head and eye movements; in rats, however, such disruption need not affect discrimination learning (at least in some kinds of apparatus), possibly because the retina of the rat has a relatively poorly developed area centralis.

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The role of the superior colliculus in visually guided locomotion and visual orienting in the hamster

Cited by 71 publications

References 19 publications

Configuration-Sensitive Visual Responses in the Superior Colliculus of the House Mouse <i>(Mus musculus domesticus</i><i>)</i>

Configuration-Sensitive Visual Responses in the Superior Colliculus of the House Mouse <i>(Mus musculus domesticus</i><i>)</i>

Consciousness without a cerebral cortex: A challenge for neuroscience and medicine

Visual Discrimination Learning in Rats with Lesions of Superior Colliculus: Door-Push and Approach Errors in Modified Jumping Stand

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