A dedicated circuit links direction-selective retinal ganglion cells to the primary visual cortex

Abstract

How specific features in the environment are represented within the brain is an important unanswered question in neuroscience. A subset of retinal neurons, called direction selective ganglion cells (DSGCs) are specialized for detecting motion along specific axes of the visual field1. Despite extensive study of the retinal circuitry that endows DSGCs with their unique tuning properties2,3, their downstream circuitry in the brain and thus their contribution to visual processing has remained unclear. In mice, several different types of DSGCs connect to the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN),4,5,6 the visual thalamic structure that harbors cortical relay neurons. Whether direction selective information computed at the level of the retina is routed to cortical circuits and integrated with other visual channels, however, is unknown. Here we show using viral trans-synaptic circuit mapping7,8 and functional imaging of visually-driven calcium signals in thalamocortical axons, that there is a di-synaptic circuit linking DSGCs with the superficial layers of primary visual cortex (V1). This circuit pools information from multiple types of DSGCs, converges in a specialized subdivision of the dLGN, and delivers direction-tuned and orientation-tuned signals to superficial V1. Notably, this circuit is anatomically segregated from the retino-geniculo-cortical pathway carrying non-direction-tuned visual information to deeper layers of V1, such as layer 4. Thus, the mouse harbors several functionally specialized, parallel retino-geniculo-cortical pathways, one of which originates with retinal DSGCs and delivers direction- and orientation-tuned information specifically to the superficial layers of primary visual cortex. These data provide evidence that direction and orientation selectivity of some V1 neurons may be influenced by the activation of DSGCs.