Development of the Superior Colliculus

Abstract

Reference is often made to a study by Adamiik (1872) to illustrate how long we have known that the superior colliculus (SC) plays a role in eye movements. The interest in the involvement of the SC in eye movements has not waned, but has actually increased as a result of recent work describing the activity of SC cells in behaving animals (for comprehensive discussions, see Sparks & Pol­ lack 1977 , Goldberg & Robinson 1978, and Wurtz & Albano 1980). In striking contrast to the decades of exploration of the role the SC plays in eye move­ ments, and in vision in general, is the comparative recency of our appreciation of its multisensory roles. It is even difficult to point to a specific date when this began, because the view of the SC as a structure persisted even after anatomical studies demonstrated that it received nonvisual afferents (e. g. Marburg & Warner 1947, Poirier & Bertrand 1955, Anderson & Berry 1959, Mehler et aI1960). As late as 1962, the deep portion of the SC was described as containing . . . cells that respond to extraoptic stimulation of unknown origin (Altman & Malis 1962). Soon thereafter, however, demonstrations that SC cells could respond to nonvisual stimuli began to accumulate (Bell et aI1964, Jassik-Gerschenfeld 1965, Hom & Hill 1966), and now the involvement of the SC in auditory and somatosensory as well as visual functions is firmly estab­ lished. Many of the early studies that mention the SC do so in passing; seldom was it the major focus of attention. However, an upsurge of interest in the SC took place during the 1960s and has continued unabated since. Of considerable importance in initiating this interest was the description of the profound contralateral sensory neglect that occurred after destruction of the SC in cats