Abstract
Saccade accommodation is a productive model for exploring the role of the cerebellum in behavioral plasticity. In this model, the target is moved during the saccade, gradually inducing a change in the saccade vector as the animal adapts. The climbing fiber pathway from the inferior olive provides a visual error signal generated by the superior colliculus that is believed to be crucial for cerebellar adaptation. However, the primate tecto-olivary pathway has only been explored using large injections of the central portion of the superior colliculus. To provide a more detailed picture, we have made injections of anterograde tracers into various regions of the macaque superior colliculus. As shown previously, large central injections primarily label a dense terminal field within the C subdivision at caudal end of the contralateral medial inferior olive. Several, previously unobserved, sites of sparse terminal labeling were noted: bilaterally in the dorsal cap of Kooy and ipsilaterally in the C subdivision of the medial inferior olive. Small, physiologically directed, injections into the rostral, small saccade portion of the superior colliculus produced terminal fields in the same regions of the medial inferior olive, but with decreased density. Small injections of the caudal superior colliculus, where large amplitude gaze changes are encoded, again labeled a terminal field located in the same areas. The lack of a topographic pattern within the main tecto-olivary projection suggests that either the precise vector of the visual error is not transmitted to the vermis, or that encoding of this error is via non-topographic means.
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The data supporting this study are available for loan upon reasonable request to the authors.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Jinrong Wei who assisted us in surgeries and undertook the histological processing.
Funding
This work was supported by National Eye Institute grant EY014263 from the U.S. National Institutes of Health to Paul J. May & Susan Warren and National Eye Institute grant EY023277 from the U.S. National Institutes of Health to Yoshiko Kojima. This work was also made possible by U.S. National Institutes of Health grants OD010425 for the Washington National Primate Research Center, and P30EY001730 for the Vision Research Core for the University of Washington.
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The anatomy experiments were designed by PJM and carried out by SW and PJM. The physiology experiments were designed and carried out by YK. The data was analyzed by all authors. Figures were prepared by PJM and remaining authors. The manuscript was initially drafted by PJM and edited by all three authors.
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May, P.J., Warren, S. & Kojima, Y. The superior colliculus projection upon the macaque inferior olive. Brain Struct Funct (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-023-02743-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-023-02743-7