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Superior colliculus-pulvinar-amygdala subcortical visual pathway and its biological significance

WANG Lei^1,2, YANG Li-Chuan², MENG Qian-Li³, MA Yuan-Ye^2,3,*

¹GLP Center, Yunnan Institute of Materia Medica, Kunming 650111, China；²Laboratory of Primate Neuroscience Research and Key Laboratory of Animal Models and Human Disease Mechanisms, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650223, China；³State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China

Abstract

Superior colliculus-pulvinar-amygdala pathway is one of the subcortical visual pathways in mammalian brain. Some recent studies suggest that this pathway is involved in processing emotion-related visual information. This review discusses the possibility that this pathway is more related to visual alert rather than simply the early visual information processing. The biological significance of this pathway is also discussed. Instead of detecting “where” or “what” the visual target is, the task of this early visual stage is to send out a warning signal, i.e., “something appears”, so that the brain can be set up in a state of alert, which is important for the survival of animals. Thus, in the early visual information process, detection of new object “emerging” or “disappearing” takes priority over the acquisition of its feature information of “texture” and “shape”, etc. The subcortical pathway may provide the neural basis of early visual warning in topological perception, a biological significance critical for animal survival.

Key words: Brain;;;;

Received: 2017-04-25　　Accepted: 2018-01-24

Corresponding author: 马原野　　E-mail: yuanma0716@vip.sina.com

DOI: 10.13294/j.aps.2018.0009

Citing This Article：

WANG Lei, YANG Li-Chuan, MENG Qian-Li, MA Yuan-Ye. Superior colliculus-pulvinar-amygdala subcortical visual pathway and its biological significance. Acta Physiol Sin 2018; 70 (1): 79-84 (in Chinese with English abstract).