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Spectral receptive field properties of neurons in the feline superior colliculus

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Abstract

The spatio-temporal frequency response profiles of 73 neurons located in the superficial, retino-recipient layers of the feline superior colliculus (SC) were investigated. The majority of the SC cells responded optimally to very low spatial frequencies with a mean of 0.1 cycles/degree (c/deg). The spatial resolution was also low with a mean of 0.31 c/deg. The spatial frequency tuning functions were either low-pass or band-pass with a mean spatial frequency bandwidth of 1.84 octaves. The cells responded optimally to a range of temporal frequencies between 0.74 cycles/s (c/s) and 26.41 c/s with a mean of 6.84 c/s. The majority (68%) of the SC cells showed band-pass temporal frequency tuning with a mean temporal frequency bandwidth of 2.4 octaves, while smaller proportions of the SC units displayed high-pass (19%), low-pass (8%) or broad-band (5%) temporal tuning. Most of the SC units exhibited simple spectral tuning with a single maximum in the spatio-temporal frequency domain, while some neurons were tuned for spatial or temporal frequencies or speed tuned. Further, we found cells excited by gratings moving at high temporal and low spatial frequencies and cells whose activity was suppressed by high velocity movement. The spatio-temporal filter properties of the SC neurons show close similarities to those of their retinal Y and W inputs as well as those of their inputs from the cortical visual motion detector areas, suggesting their common role in motion analysis and related behavioral actions.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Zita Márkus and Alice Roxin, medical students at Albert Szent-Györgyi Medical and Pharmaceutical Center, for their participation in some of the experiments described here, Gabriella Dósai for her skilful technical assistance, and Péter Liszli for computer programming. Thanks are due to Prof. Bogdan Dreher and the reviewers for their helpful comments on the manuscript. The work was supported financially by the Polish State Committee for Scientific Research grant no. 3P04C08222, Hungarian OTKA grant no. T042610 and ETT grant no. 429/2003.

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  1. Department of Neurophysiology, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, 3 Pasteur St., 02-093, Warsaw, Poland

    Wioletta J. Waleszczyk, Marek Wypych & Anaida Ghazaryan

  2. Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Albert Szent-Györgyi Medical and Pharmaceutical Center, University of Szeged, Dóm tér 10, POB 427, 6720, Szeged, Hungary

    Attila Nagy, Antal Berényi, Zsuzsanna Paróczy, Gabriella Eördegh & György Benedek

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  1. Wioletta J. Waleszczyk
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  2. Attila Nagy
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Correspondence to György Benedek.

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Waleszczyk, W.J., Nagy, A., Wypych, M. et al. Spectral receptive field properties of neurons in the feline superior colliculus. Exp Brain Res 181, 87–98 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-007-0908-1

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