Direction-selective units in the frog's basal optic root nucleus.

Abstract

Electrophysiological responses from 91 direction-selective (DS) units located in the basal optic root (nBOR) and the adjacent dorsomedial area have been recorded extracellularly in the frog (Rana temporaria L.). Based on characteristics of the recorded responses, 23 of the units are considered to be retinal ganglion cells' (RGC; axon terminals). The majority of the remaining 68 units were considered to be DS neurons of the nBOR. The results of our study suggest that in the nBOR area there might be four subtypes of the tegmental and retinal DS units that respond selectively to stimuli moving in the dorso-ventral, ventro-dorsal, caudo-rostral and rostro-caudal directions. The receptive field (RF) sizes of the nBOR DS neurons were estimated to be about 30-[Formula: see text], while those for the retinal units were significantly smaller- just 6-[Formula: see text]. In response to abrupt darkening within the units' RFs, both the nBOR DS neurons and the RGC DS units respond by a weak discharge. Our results indicate that the frog nBOR DS neurons integrate the inputs from the retinal OFF-type DS units over relatively large segments of the visual field.