My long term goal is to understand the physiological mechanisms associated with human color vision. The cynomolgus monkey, which has color vision identical to that of normal human trichromats, will be the experimental animal. Micropipette electrodes filled with the marker enzyme horseradish peroxidase (HRP) will be used to record intracellularly from lateral geniculate axons terminating in the striate cortex. After physiologically characterizing a fiber, it will be injected iontophoretically with HRP to reveal its cortical terminations. Distinctive axonal arborization patterns will be correlated with specific function properties to better understand the significance of both the geniculate and the cortical layers in color processing. Intracellular recordings will be made from monkey striate cortical cells with HRP-filled micropipettes. The cells' physiological properties will be determined and then they will be injected with HRP. The study of the laminar positions, dendritic arborizations and axonal projections of functionally characterized color-sensitive cortical cells provides a most promising way to understand the intracortical circuitry for color processing, the synaptic connections and interactions involved, the integrative mechanisms leading to their receptive field construction and the development of their spectral sensitivities. Tungsten electrodes will be used to record extracellularly from single cells for long periods of time, as well as from many cells in a single experiment. The functional organization of the color cells in the monkey's striate cortex will be examined by making long, oblique electrode tracks through single cortical layers. The double opponent color cells in the supragranular blobs will be compared with those in layer 4, those in 4A will be correlated with those in 4Cb, upper versus lower 4Cb will be examined, and the more complicated color cells in the supragranular and infragranular layers will be contrasted. This approach will provide much useful information about the integrative steps involved in cortical color processing.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Eye Institute (NEI)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01EY000568-19
Application #
3255447
Study Section
Visual Sciences B Study Section (VISB)
Project Start
1976-12-01
Project End
1989-12-31
Budget Start
1987-01-01
Budget End
1987-12-31
Support Year
19
Fiscal Year
1987
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Yale University
Department
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
082359691
City
New Haven
State
CT
Country
United States
Zip Code
06520