Rodent Area Prostriata Converges Multimodal Hierarchical Inputs and Projects to the Structures Important for Visuomotor Behaviors.

Chang-Hui Chen,Song-Lin Ding,Xiao-Jun Xiang,Jin-Meng Hu,Shun-Yu Zhang,Sheng-Qiang Chen

doi:10.3389/fnins.2021.772016

Abstract

Area prostriata is a limbic structure critical to fast processing of moving stimuli in far peripheral visual field. Neural substrates underlying this function remain to be discovered. Using both retrograde and anterograde tracing methods, the present study reveals that the prostriata in rat and mouse receives inputs from multimodal hierarchical cortical areas such as primary, secondary, and association visual and auditory cortices and subcortical regions such as the anterior and midline thalamic nuclei and claustrum. Surprisingly, the prostriata also receives strong afferents directly from the rostral part of the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus. This shortcut pathway probably serves as one of the shortest circuits for fast processing of the peripheral vision and unconscious blindsight since it bypasses the primary visual cortex. The outputs of the prostriata mainly target the presubiculum (including postsubiculum), pulvinar, ventral lateral geniculate nucleus, lateral dorsal thalamic nucleus, and zona incerta as well as the pontine and pretectal nuclei, most of which are heavily involved in subcortical visuomotor functions. Taken together, these results suggest that the prostriata is poised to quickly receive and analyze peripheral visual and other related information and timely initiates and modulates adaptive visuomotor behaviors, particularly in response to unexpected quickly looming threats.

Highlights

Area prostriata is a limbic cortical region located at the junction of the retrosplenial cortex (RS), caudal presubiculum (PrS), caudal parasubiculum (PaS), and medial visual cortex in human and non-human primates (Sanides, 1969; Allman and Kaas, 1971; Sousa et al, 1991; Morecraft et al, 2000; Ding et al, 2003; Rockland, 2012)
The sections were mounted on chrome alum and gelatin-coated slides, dehydrated in gradient alcohol and xylene, and coverslipped
After rinses in 0.1 M of phosphate buffer (PB), the sections were incubated in 3% hydrogen peroxide solution for 10 min and in 5% bovine serum albumin (BSA) for 40 min for blocking

Summary

Introduction

Area prostriata (prostriata, Pro) is a limbic cortical region located at the junction of the retrosplenial cortex (RS), caudal presubiculum (PrS), caudal parasubiculum (PaS), and medial visual cortex in human and non-human primates (Sanides, 1969; Allman and Kaas, 1971; Sousa et al, 1991; Morecraft et al, 2000; Ding et al, 2003; Rockland, 2012). Retrogradely labeled neurons were observed in the prostriata after the tracer injections into the primary visual cortex (V1; Sousa et al, 1991), the middle temporal visual area (Rosa et al, 1993; Palmer and Rosa, 2006), the orbitofrontal cortex (Barbas, 1993; Cavada et al, 2000), the rostral cingulate motor cortex (Morecraft et al, 2000), the auditory association cortex (Falchier et al, 2010), the parietal area PGm (Passarelli et al, 2018), the dorsal prefrontal cortex (area 8b) (Reser et al, 2013; Bakola et al, 2021), and the frontal pole (Burman et al, 2011)

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