François Mooser | PubMed Health

PubMed2004

A morphological basis for orientation tuning in primary visual cortex.

Feedforward connections are thought to be important in the generation of orientation-selective responses in visual cortex by establishing a bias in the sampling of information from regions of visual space that lie along a neuron's axis of preferred orientation. It remains unclear, however, which structural elements-dendrites or axons-are ultimately responsible for conveying this sampling bias. To explore this question, we have examined the spatial arrangement of feedforward axonal connections that link non-oriented neurons in layer 4 and orientation-selective neurons in layer 2/3 of visual cortex in the tree shrew. Target sites of labeled boutons in layer 2/3 resulting from focal injections of biocytin in layer 4 show an orientation-specific axial bias that is sufficient to confer orientation tuning to layer 2/3 neurons. We conclude that the anisotropic arrangement of axon terminals is the principal source of the orientation bias contributed by feedforward connections.

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PubMed2003

Emergent properties of layer 2/3 neurons reflect the collinear arrangement of horizontal connections in tree shrew visual cortex.

The superficial layers of primary visual cortex, unlike layer 4, have an extensive network of long-range horizontal connections linking sites of similar orientation preference. To identify possible functional consequences of this distinct anatomy, we compared the receptive field properties of layers 2/3 and 4 neurons in tree shrew primary visual cortex with electrophysiological recordings. We found that elongated receptive fields, strong orientation tuning, and length summation (properties predicted by the anatomy of the horizontal connections) are present in layer 2/3 neurons, but not in layer 4 neurons. We further characterized the summation fields of layer 2/3 neurons and found axis and orientation-specific facilitation that matched the distribution of horizontal connections. The functional signature of horizontal connections was also evident in the population response of layer 2/3 neurons; the intrinsic signal activation pattern elicited by an array of collinear Gabor elements was significantly stronger than that elicited by a noncollinear array. Furthermore, our results showed that this enhancement of population response was achieved without compromising spatial resolution along the collinear axis, providing stimulus-specific facilitation without filling in between stimuli. Taken together, these results suggest that horizontal connections play a significant role in shaping the visual responses of layer 2/3 neurons.

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