title: Neurons in the most superficial lamina of the mouse superior colliculus are highly selective for stimulus direction.
abstract: The superior colliculus (SC) is a layered midbrain structure important for multimodal integration and sensorimotor transformation. Its superficial layers are purely visual and receive depth-specific projections from distinct subtypes of retinal ganglion cells. Here we use two-photon calcium imaging to characterize the response properties of neurons in the most superficial lamina of the mouse SC, an undersampled population with electrophysiology. We find that these neurons have compact receptive fields with primarily overlapping ON and OFF subregions and are highly direction selective. The high selectivity is observed in both excitatory and inhibitory neurons. These neurons do not cluster according to their direction preference and lack orientation selectivity. In addition, we perform single-unit recordings and show that direction selectivity declines with depth in the SC. Together, our experiments reveal for the first time a highly specialized lamina in the most superficial SC for movement direction, a finding that has important implications for understanding signal transformation in the early visual system.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology and Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60607.
authors.forename: Samsoon
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1966-7967
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Inayat
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology and Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208.
authors.forename: Jad
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Barchini
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois 60611, and.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5523-1613
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois 60611, and.
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology and Department of Ophthalmology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois 60611, and.
authors.forename: Xiaorong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology and cang@northwestern.edu.
authors.forename: Jianhua
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0760-7468
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D020013:Calcium Signaling; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D009474:Neurons / Q000145:classification / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D013477:Superior Colliculi / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D014795:Visual Pathways / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology
keywords: direction selectivity; mouse visual system; superior colliculus; two-photon imaging