Visual responses of neurons in the pretectal nucleus lentiformis mesencephali to moving patterns within and beyond receptive fields in pigeons.
Large-field patterns are effective stimuli for eliciting visual responses from neurons in the pretectal nucleus lentiformis mesencephali of nonmammals. The present study shows that stimulation beyond the receptive field does not contribute to the visual responses of neurons in the nucleus lentiformis mesencephali in two respects. First, changes in the direction and velocity of motion beyond the receptive field did not affect the visual responses of the pretectal cells to motion within the receptive field. Second, time differences in the onset of stimulation within and outside the receptive field did not influence the visual responses of the pretectal cells to motion in the receptive field, implying that there may be no long-range interaction between the receptive field and its surrounding field. The present study also indicates that the pretectal cells are not only sensitive to the direction and velocity of motion, but also to the size and density of dots in a random-dot pattern moving through the receptive field. Taken together with previous studies, these results suggest that the receptive field of the pretectal cells within the nucleus lentiformis mesencephali is large in size but well defined in boundaries, and that the pretectal cells respond to motion of visual stimuli within but not beyond their receptive fields.
Xiao
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Laboratory for Visual Information Processing, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Cao
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P
Gu
Y
Y
Wang
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SR
D000818:Animals; D010856:Columbidae; D003342:Corpus Striatum / Q000502:physiology*; D008636:Mesencephalon / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D017120:Nystagmus, Optokinetic / Q000502:physiology; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D014794:Visual Fields / Q000502:physiology*; D014795:Visual Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*