Visual cortical projections and chemoarchitecture of macaque monkey pulvinar

Adams, Michelle M.; Hof, Patrick R.; Gattass, Ricardo; Webster, Maree J.; Ungerleider, Leslie G.

doi:10.1002/(sici)1096-9861(20000410)419:3<377::aid-cne9>3.0.co;2-e

Cited by 157 publications

(182 citation statements)

References 56 publications

(103 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

164

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…the deficit was restricted to the contralesional hemifield. Chemical tracer studies in the monkey brain indicate that although ventral pulvinar neurons predominantly represent the contralateral hemifield (13,19,39) neurons with large, bilateral receptive fields have been recorded from cells within macaque lateral (ventral) pulvinar (40). Similarly, fMRI evidence in healthy humans (27,30) suggests that, as in the monkey, human pulvinar may have neurons with large receptive fields that can influence attentional competition across the entire visual field.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Specifically, early visual areas are connected with the rostrolateral pole of the pulvinar nucleus, whereas neurons in progressively more anterior temporal areas show overlapping patterns of connectivity with more caudomedial regions (16,(19)(20)(21).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ventral pulvinar [PU(v)], conversely, which includes cell populations within inferior, lateral and medial subnuclei, exhibits reciprocal connections with successive occipitotemporal cortical areas along the ventral processing stream, and contains several topographic maps of the contralateral visual field (13,(17)(18)(19)(20). Although there are few direct connections between PU(d) and PU(v), attentional control areas such as the frontal eye fields (FEF) and lateral intraparietal area (LIP) have strong connections with the superior colliculus (SC), which subsequently projects to PU(v) (13,14).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Impaired attentional selection following lesions to human pulvinar: Evidence for homology between human and monkey

Snow

Allen

Rafal

et al. 2009

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

146

101

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We examined the contributions of the human pulvinar to goal directed selection of visual targets in 3 patients with chronic, unilateral lesions involving topographic maps in the ventral pulvinar. Observers completed 2 psychophysical tasks in which they discriminated the orientation of a lateralized target grating in the presence of vertically-aligned distracters. In experiment 1, where distracter contrast was varied while target contrast remained constant, the patients' contralesional contrast thresholds for discriminating the orientation of grating stimuli were elevated only when the task required selection of a visual target in the face of competition from a salient distracter. Attentional selectivity was restored in the patients in experiment 2 where target contrast was varied while distracter contrast remained constant. These observations provide the first evidence that the human pulvinar plays a necessary role in modulating physical saliency in attentional selection, and supports a homology in global pulvinar structure between humans and monkey.salience ͉ visual attention M ultiple items within a visual scene compete for our focal attention. This competition is resolved on the basis of both the perceptual salience of the stimulus and its behavioral salience in relation to the goals of ongoing behavior (1). Visual items can compete for representation in ventral occipito-temporal brain areas, with this competition varying according to the physical distinctiveness of the items and according to whether they demand processing through the same receptive fields (2, 3). The competition can also be biased in favor of less conspicuous objects if they are nonetheless more relevant for behavior (2,4,5). These ''goaldriven'' attentional control signals arise within dorsal frontoparietal networks (6-8) and they lead to behavioral improvements in discriminating the features of the attended object (9, 10). What remains unclear is how such ''dorsal'' attentional signals are communicated to ventral occipital and temporal areas to bias visual analysis. Here, we report the first direct behavioral evidence in humans for the role of the pulvinar in coordinating these goaldriven and stimulus-driven interactions. We used a sensitive psychophysical task to examine target selection in a special group of patients with well documented chronic, unilateral lesions involving topographic maps in the ventral pulvinar. Our findings demonstrate that the pulvinar plays an important role in filtering irrelevant but salient visual distracters.The pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus has been hypothesized to play a central role in coordinating attentional effects on visual processing (11,12). Most of our current knowledge on patterns of connectivity of the pulvinar stems from anatomical studies in non-human primates. The primate pulvinar has extensive connectivity with the cortex. Based on this connectivity, several general organising principles within the pulvinar have been suggested: a global dorsal/ventral division, and an anterior/ posterior org...

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Impaired attentional selection following lesions to human pulvinar: Evidence for homology between human and monkey

Snow

Allen

Rafal

et al. 2009

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

146

101

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…MT receives synaptic inputs, of course, from many neural structures, including feedback from higher cortical areas and input from subcortical structures such as the pulvinar nucleus (Maunsell and van Essen, 1983;Ungerleider and Desimone, 1986;Adams et al, 2000). Trial-to-trial variability in LFP power could reflect variability in any of these inputs in addition to variability imposed by feedforward visual inputs.…”

Section: Differences Between Lfp and Mu Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Local Field Potential in Cortical Area MT: Stimulus Tuning and Behavioral Correlations

2006

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Low-frequency electrical signals like those that compose the local field potential (LFP) can be detected at substantial distances from their point of origin within the brain. It is thus unclear how useful the LFP might be for assessing local function, for example, on the spatial scale of cortical columns. We addressed this problem by comparing speed and direction tuning of LFPs obtained from middle temporal area MT with the tuning of multiunit (MU) activity recorded simultaneously. We found that the LFP can be well tuned for speed and direction and is highly correlated with that of MU activity, particularly for frequencies at and above the gamma band. LFP tuning is substantially poorer for lower frequencies, although tuning for direction extends to lower frequencies than does tuning for speed. Our data suggest that LFP signals at and above the gamma band reflect neural processing on the spatial scale of cortical columns, within a few hundred micrometers of the electrode tip. Consistent with this notion, we also found that frequencies at and above the gamma band measured during a speed discrimination task exhibit an effect known as "choice probability," which reveals a particularly close relationship between neural activity and behavioral choices. In the LFP, this signature of the perceptual choice comprises a shift in relative power from low-frequency bands (␣ and ␤) to the gamma band. It remains to be determined how LFP choice probability, which is a temporal signature, is related to conventional choice probability effects observed in spike rates.

show abstract

“…Most of the electrophysiological research on the mammalian pulvinar has examined motionsensitive cells (Chalupa et al, 1983;Bender, 1988;Casanova et al, 1989;Chalupa and Abramson, 1989;Merabet et al, 1998;Dumbrava et al, 2001), but neurons responsive to form and color have also been reported (Felsten et al, 1983;Benevento and Port, 1995). The cortical connections of the pulvinar are widespread and include areas 17, 18, and 19 in squirrels (Robson and Hall, 1977) and area MT, V1, V2, V4, IT, and parietal area 7 in various primates (Adams et al, 2000;Soares et al, 2001) (for review, see Robinson and McClurkin, 1989). Moreover, these projections are topographic.…”

Section: Visual Streams In the Mammalian And Avian Telencephalonmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Dissociation of Motion and Spatial-Pattern Vision in the Avian Telencephalon: Implications for the Evolution of “Visual Streams”

Nguyen¹,

Spetch²,

Crowder³

et al. 2004

J. Neurosci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The ectostriatum is a large visual structure in the avian telencephalon. Part of the tectofugal pathway, the ectostriatum receives a large ascending thalamic input from the nucleus rotundus, the homolog of the mammalian pulvinar complex. We investigated the effects of bilateral lesions of the ectostriatum in pigeons on visual motion and spatial-pattern perception tasks. To test motion perception, we measured performance on a task requiring detection of coherently moving random dots embedded in dynamic noise. To test spatialpattern perception, we measured performance on the detection of a square wave grating embedded in static noise. A double dissociation was revealed. Pigeons with lesions to the caudal ectostriatum showed a performance deficit on the motion task but not the grating task. In contrast, pigeons with lesions to the rostral ectostriatum showed a performance deficit on the grating task but not the motion task. Thus, in the avian telencephalon, there is a separation of visual motion and spatial-pattern perception as there is in the mammalian telencephalon. However, this separation of function is in the targets of the tectofugal pathway in pigeons rather than in the thalamofugal pathway as described in mammals. The implications of these findings with respect to the evolution of the visual system are discussed. Specifically, we suggest that the principle of parallel visual streams originated in the tectofugal pathway rather than the thalamofugal pathway.

show abstract

Visual cortical projections and chemoarchitecture of macaque monkey pulvinar

Cited by 157 publications

References 56 publications

Impaired attentional selection following lesions to human pulvinar: Evidence for homology between human and monkey

Impaired attentional selection following lesions to human pulvinar: Evidence for homology between human and monkey

Local Field Potential in Cortical Area MT: Stimulus Tuning and Behavioral Correlations

A Dissociation of Motion and Spatial-Pattern Vision in the Avian Telencephalon: Implications for the Evolution of “Visual Streams”

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About