Receptive field properties of single cells in the pigeon's optic tectum during cooling of the ‘visual wulst’

Abstract

In birds, efferents from the visual telencephalon (visual wulst) terminate in the ipsilateral and contralateral optic tectum. This study concerns the influence of a bilateral cryogenic block of the wulst on the receptive field properties of the visual tectal cells in the pigeon. Tectal units were tested for their responses to static and moving stimuli before, during and after cooling the wulst. For some units the cryogenic block of the wulst was repeated twice. The responsiveness to static and moving stimuli was decreased in most of the tectal cells when the neural activity of the wulst was blocked. In contrast, in some units cooling the wulst provokes an increase of responsiveness. These results indicate that the wulst-tectum path is able to convey both excitatory and inhibitory influences. Other receptive field properties such as the spatial location of the light and dark excitatory regions in the field, the effect of the surround, the size and shape of the excitatory region, the relative responsiveness to static and moving stimuli and the ‘spontaneous activity’ were not affected by wulst cooling. Directional tuning curves were obtained in 18 directionally selective cells before, during and after wulst cooling. In 6 of them the cryogenic block provoked a reduction in directional selectivity either by way of a reduction of the preferred response (4 cells) or by way of an increase of the non-preferred responses (2 cells). In two others directionally selective cells, cooling the wulst provoked a total loss of directional selectivity due to a reduction of the response to the preferred direction together with an increase of the response to the null direction. These results show: (1) that the retinal directional selective input to the tectum is affected by the cryogenic block of the wulst; and (2) that the visual wulst provokes a sharpening of the directional tuning at the optic tectum level.