Multisensory responses and receptive field properties of neurons in the substantia nigra and in the caudate nucleus

Abstract

The basal ganglia are widely regarded as structures involved in sensorimotor co-ordination, but little is known about the sensory background of their function. We publish here descriptions of the excitatory sensory responses and receptive field properties of the visual, auditory, somatosensory and multisensory caudate nucleus and substantia nigra pars reticulata neurons. Altogether 111 caudate nucleus and 124 substantia nigra sensory neurons were recorded in halothane-anaesthetized, immobilized, artificially ventilated cats. The sensory properties of the caudate and nigral neurons were found to be quite similar. A majority of the units were unimodal while a significant proportion of them were multisensory. The visual and the somatosensory modalities predominated for both nuclei. The sensory receptive fields were extremely large. The visual and auditory receptive fields covered the whole physically approachable sensory field and the somatosensory receptive fields covered the whole body surface of the animal. The receptive field properties of the multisensory caudate and nigral units were similar to those of the unimodal neurons. We observed no signs of retinotopical or somatotopical organization within the basal ganglia. The particular sensory receptive field properties, together with the significant number of multisensory neurons in the basal ganglia, suggest the existence of a multisensory pathway of presumably tectal origin involving the caudate nucleus and the substantia nigra that may serve for the sensory feedback of motor actions co-ordinated by the basal ganglia.

Network Architecture of Gap Junction-Coupled Neuronal Linkage in the Striatum

“…Although it is uncertain to which extent these divisions are applicable to the feline striatum, tracer experiments have depicted the basically similar organization (Malach and Graybiel, 1986;Norita et al, 1991;Updyke, 1993). The posterior caudate nucleus of the cat especially contains neurons that respond to different sensory stimuli such as visual, auditory, somatosensory or even multisensory inputs (Nagy et al, 2005). Importantly, all these neurons are confined to the dorsolateral sector of the posterior caudate, which closely matches the areas of high gap junctional coupling in this study.…”

Chronic lithium chloride administration to rats elevates glucose metabolism in wide areas of brain, while potentiating negative effects on metabolism of dopamine D2-like receptor stimulation

“…Additional t tests showed that quinpirole significantly decreased rCMR glc in LiCl diet but not in the control diet fed rats Significant baseline elevations in rCMR glc induced by the LiCl diet were found in central auditory (auditory cortex, habenular nucleus lateral, medial geniculate nucleus, and inferior colliculus) and visual (visual cortex, habenular nucleus medial, lateral geniculate nucleus, and superior colliculus) circuits (Brodal 1981). The pretectal area, which was affected, also can participate in visualoculomotor-auditory circuits (Clarke et al 2003), as can the other positively affected regions-hippocampus (Pollmann et al 2004), caudate-putamen (Arnauld et al 1996), and substantia nigra (Nagy et al 2005). Many of these regions belong to neural circuits that have been identified with functional and structural imaging, as important in modulating emotional behavior and as disturbed in mood disorders (Altshuler et al 2005;Carlson et al 2006;Chang et al 2004).…”

Impact of Prolonged Temporal Discrimination Threshold on Finger Movements of Parkinson’s Disease

“…A large proportion of caudate neurons receives proprioceptive [15] and discriminative cutaneous sensory inputs [16, 17]. In monkeys, a microelectrode recording study reported that caudate neuronal response to sensory stimuli becomes less active after 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP)-treatment [18].…”