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Enhancement and contextual modulation of visuospatial processing by thalamocollicular projections from ventral lateral geniculate nucleus.

Authors :
Li Z
Peng B
Huang JJ
Zhang Y
Seo MB
Fang Q
Zhang GW
Zhang X
Zhang LI
Tao HW
Source :
Nature communications [Nat Commun] 2023 Nov 10; Vol. 14 (1), pp. 7278. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Nov 10.
Publication Year :
2023

Abstract

In the mammalian visual system, the ventral lateral geniculate nucleus (vLGN) of the thalamus receives salient visual input from the retina and sends prominent GABAergic axons to the superior colliculus (SC). However, whether and how vLGN contributes to fundamental visual information processing remains largely unclear. Here, we report in mice that vLGN facilitates visually-guided approaching behavior mediated by the lateral SC and enhances the sensitivity of visual object detection. This can be attributed to the extremely broad spatial integration of vLGN neurons, as reflected in their much lower preferred spatial frequencies and broader spatial receptive fields than SC neurons. Through GABAergic thalamocollicular projections, vLGN specifically exerts prominent surround suppression of visuospatial processing in SC, leading to a fine tuning of SC preferences to higher spatial frequencies and smaller objects in a context-dependent manner. Thus, as an essential component of the central visual processing pathway, vLGN serves to refine and contextually modulate visuospatial processing in SC-mediated visuomotor behaviors via visually-driven long-range feedforward inhibition.<br /> (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
2041-1723
Volume :
14
Issue :
1
Database :
MEDLINE
Journal :
Nature communications
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
37949869
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-43147-9