Abstract
Animals use the temporal information from previously experienced periodic events to instruct their future behaviors. The retina and cortex are involved in such behavior, but it remains largely unknown how the thalamus, transferring visual information from the retina to the cortex, processes the periodic temporal patterns. Here we report that the luminance cells in the nucleus dorsolateralis anterior thalami (DLA) of pigeons exhibited oscillatory activities in a temporal pattern identical to the rhythmic luminance changes of repetitive light/dark (LD) stimuli with durations in the seconds-to-minutes range. Particularly, after LD stimulation, the DLA cells retained the entrained oscillatory activities with an interval closely matching the duration of the LD cycle. Furthermore, the post-stimulus oscillatory activities of the DLA cells were sustained without feedback inputs from the pallium (equivalent to the mammalian cortex). Our study suggests that the experience-dependent representation of time interval in the brain might not be confined to the pallial/cortical level, but may occur as early as at the thalamic level.
Highlights
The ability to process and sense the temporal information of external stimuli is fundamental for humans and other animals in enabling them to adapt to the environment
The present study showed that thalamic cells in the pigeon dorsolateralis anterior thalami (DLA), which encoded ambient luminance, could be entrained by repetitive LD stimuli, and retained the entrained oscillatory activities even after the periodic stimulation was terminated
The post-stimulus replay responses of these cells depended on the temporal frequency and the number of LD cycles applied during LD stimulation
Summary
The ability to process and sense the temporal information of external stimuli is fundamental for humans and other animals in enabling them to adapt to the environment. Use of the perceived temporal information from previously experienced stimuli to predict upcoming events has been demonstrated in birds (Gibbon et al, 1984; Henderson et al, 2006; Kalenscher et al, 2006), rodents (Crystal and Baramidze, 2007; Agostino et al, 2011), primates, and humans (Leon and Shadlen, 2003; Buhusi and Meck, 2005; Janssen and Shadlen, 2005; Penney et al, 2008). There is increasing evidence showing that the visual thalamus filters, rather than passively relays, the visual information sensed by the retina as it signals to the cortex (Cudeiro and Sillito, 2006; Saalmann and Kastner, 2011; Sherman, 2016). We have limited knowledge on how the visual thalamus encodes the temporal information from experienced stimuli and represents the time that has elapsed since the previous event
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
