The responsiveness of Clare-Bishop neurons to size cues for motion stereopsis

Abstract

The responsiveness to the size cue, and a combination of the size and motion cues contained in 3-dimensional motion of a visual stimulus was studied in 118 Clare-Bishop (CB) cells, including 37 and 10 cells selectively responsive to approaching (AP) and to recessive motion along the the axis through the center of the receptive area and the nose (RC), 40 cells responsive to the frontoparallel motion in the horizontal direction (FP), 23 cells rather non-selectively responsive to the two types of motion (NS) and 8 cells responsive to the size cue but unresponsive to the 3-dimensional motion (SZ). About three quarters of the AP cells (27/37) were responsive to both an increase in the stimulus size and divergent motion of the retinal images in the two eyes, which represents the size and motion cues for the approaching motion along the axis through the center of the receptive area and the nose, and were optimally excited by a combination of the two visual cues. About the same fraction of the RC cells (6/10) was responsive to the motion (convergent motion) and size cues (a decrease in stimulus size), and optimally excited by a combination of the two visual cues. In contrast, only a small fraction of the FP cells (6/40) were sensitive to the size cue, and all FP cells were optimally excited by the single presentation of the motion cue for the frontoparallel motion (either right- or leftward motion in both eyes). Responses were frequently (18/40) smaller for the combined presentation of the two visual cues than for the single presentation of the motion cue. Similarly, a small fraction of the NS cells (7/23) was sensitive to the size cue, but many of them (16/23) were non-selectively responsive to the size cues for the approaching and recessive motion. A similar study in an additional 108 (78 AP and 30 RC) cells which were responsive to approaching or recessive motion vertically or obliquely deviating from the axis through the center of the receptive area and the nose demonstrated that they were also sensitive to both motion and size cues for that approaching or recessive motion, and were optimally excited by a combination of the two visual cues. These findings indicate that the CB cell responsiveness to 3-dimensional motion is based on the integration of the motion and size signals conveyed through the two eyes. A model of neuronal circuitry was constructed to explain the CB cell responsiveness to the motion and size signals.