Discharge properties of MST neurons that project to the frontal pursuit area in macaque monkeys

Churchland, A. K., Lisberger, S. G. (2005) Discharge properties of MST neurons that project to the frontal pursuit area in macaque monkeys. Journal of Neurophysiology, 94 (2). pp. 1084-1090. ISSN 00223077 (ISSN)

URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15872067
DOI: 10.1152/jn.00196.2005

Abstract

We have used antidromic activation to determine the functional discharge properties of neurons that project to the frontal pursuit area (FPA) from the medial-superior temporal visual area (MST). In awake rhesus monkeys, 4MST neurons were considered to be activated antidromically if they emitted action potentials at fixed, short latencies after stimulation in the FPA and if the activation passed the collision test. Antidromically activated neurons (n = 37) and a sample of the overall population of MST neurons (n = 110) then were studied during pursuit eye movements across a dark background and during laminar motion of a large random-dot texture and optic flow expansion and contraction during fixation. Antidromically activated neurons showed direction tuning during pursuit (25/37), during laminar image motion (21/37), or both (16/37). Of 27 neurons tested with optic flow stimuli, 14 showed tuning for optic flow expansion (n = 10) or contraction (n = 4). There were no statistically significant differences in the response properties of the antidromically activated and control samples. Preferred directions for pursuit and laminar image motion did not show any statistically significant biases, and the preferred directions for eye versus image motion in each sample tended to be equally divided between aligned and opposed. There were small differences between the control and antidromically activated populations in preferred speeds for laminar motion and optic flow; these might have reached statistical significance with larger samples of antidromically activated neurons. We conclude that the population of MST neurons projecting to the FPA is highly diverse and quite similar to the general population of neurons in MST. Copyright © 2005 The American Physiological Society.

Item Type: Paper
Uncontrolled Keywords: action potential animal experiment article cell activation cell population controlled study darkness eye fixation eye tracking frontal pursuit area latent period Macaca medial superior temporal visual area monkey nerve cell stimulation nerve projection nonhuman priority journal stimulus response visual cortex visual stimulation wakefulness Action Potentials Analysis of Variance Animals Electric Stimulation Evoked Potentials Eye Movements Frontal Lobe Macaca mulatta Motion Perception Neurons Photic Stimulation Reaction Time Visual Pathways
Subjects: organism description > animal behavior
organism description > animal > mammal > primates
organism description > animal behavior > vision
CSHL Authors:
Communities: CSHL labs > Churchland lab
Depositing User: CSHL Librarian
Date: 2005
Date Deposited: 20 Mar 2012 15:14
Last Modified: 03 Dec 2014 15:00
PMCID: PMC2582194
Related URLs:
URI: https://repository.cshl.edu/id/eprint/25457

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