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Pattern adaptation of relay cells in the lateral geniculate nucleus of binocular and monocular vision-deprived cats

Wang Wei, Shou Tiande

Vision Research Laboratory,School of Life Sciences,University of Science and Technology of China.Hefei 230027,Anhui

Abstract

To test whether the pattern adaptation in thalamus is dependent upon postnatal visual experience during early life, the responses of relay cells to prolonged drifting grating stimulation were recorded extracellularly from the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN) of cats reared with binocular and monocular lid suture. In binocular vision-deprived cats, 68% of cells recorded showed significant adaptation to prolonged grating stimuli within 30s, with a mean response decrease of 33%, and then stabilized gradually. This adaptation was stronger than that of relay cells in normal cats. In monocular vision-deprived cats, 53% of the cells driven by the deprived eye showed similar adaptation as did 44% of the cells driven by the non-deprived eye. These results indicate that pattern adaptation could be maintained or even enhanced after visual deprivation in early life. It is suggested that pattern adaptation is a general and intrinsic property of the dLGN cells, which may be mainly determined by genetic factors.

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Citing This Article：

Wang Wei, Shou Tiande. Pattern adaptation of relay cells in the lateral geniculate nucleus of binocular and monocular vision-deprived cats. Acta Physiol Sin 2000; 52 (3): (in Chinese with English abstract).