Dark adaptation and receptive field organisation of cells in the cat lateral geniculate nucleus

Abstract

The receptive fields of LGN cells were investigated with stationary light and dark spot and annulus stimuli. Stimulus size and background intensity were varied while stimulus/background contrast was kept constant. The speed of dark adaptation vaired considerably from cell to cell. Dark adaptation made responses more sustained in all neurones and eliminated the oscillatory on-responses evoked under some conditions in the light-adapted cells. Dark adaptation led also to a disappearance of early phasic inhibition in on-responses, and increased response rise time and latency. The power of surround responses to inhibit centre responses decreased slightly at low levels of light adaptation in LGN cells but much less than in retinal ganglion cells. Some other traces of changing retinal surround effects also appeared inthe LGN on dark adaptation. For example, the functional size of receptive fields increased at low levels of illuminance as has been observed in retinal ganglion cells and the receptive fields as estimated from response peaks were larger than those estimated from sustained components.