Over the past decades, the combination of anatomical and physiological techniques has generated a detailed map of the main connections made by cortical and subcortical structures within the brain. The challenge remains to discover their function. Understanding the function of a major connection requires collecting many pieces of information through well-targeted objectives. This proposal will study the properties of two major types of connections within the visual pathway (corticocortical and corticothalamic) by focusing on two main questions: What cell types are involved in each connection? What is the strength of the connections as estimated from the correlated firing they generate? First, experiments will be done to investigate whether corticocortical and corticothalamic connections follow different wiring strategies (e.g. cell types involved, quality of the receptive-field match between connected cells, etc.). Second, the relative strength of corticortical, thalamocortical and corticothalamic connections will be estimated by measuring the correlated firing generated between inputs and targets by each of these connections. Third, experiments will be done to investigate the role of the corticothalamic pathway in modulating different types of geniculate synchrony (e.g. synchrony generated within the retina, synchrony generated among geniculate cells that share a retinal afferent, other types of synchrony). All these questions will be addressed by combining modern techniques of simultaneous recordings and automatic receptive field mapping with more classical tools such as cross-correlation analysis, electrical microstimulation and pharmacological reversible inactivation of restricted brain regions. The study of the properties of corticocortical and corticothalamic circuits is important to understand neural mechanisms involved in visual processing. A precise knowledge of these mechanisms could eventually help to prevent and treat different forms of visual disorders.
| Luo-Li, Gloria; Mazade, Reece; Zaidi, Qasim et al. (2018) Motion changes response balance between ON and OFF visual pathways. Commun Biol 1:60 |
| Kremkow, Jens; Alonso, Jose-Manuel (2018) Thalamocortical Circuits and Functional Architecture. Annu Rev Vis Sci 4:263-285 |
| Alonso, Jose Manuel (2018) Motion processing picks up speed in the brain. Nature 558:38-39 |
| Pons, Carmen; Mazade, Reece; Jin, Jianzhong et al. (2017) Neuronal mechanisms underlying differences in spatial resolution between darks and lights in human vision. J Vis 17:5 |
| Mazade, Reece; Alonso, Jose Manuel (2017) Thalamocortical processing in vision. Vis Neurosci 34:E007 |
| Koch, Erin; Jin, Jianzhong; Alonso, Jose M et al. (2016) Functional implications of orientation maps in primary visual cortex. Nat Commun 7:13529 |
| Kremkow, Jens; Perrinet, Laurent U; Monier, Cyril et al. (2016) Push-Pull Receptive Field Organization and Synaptic Depression: Mechanisms for Reliably Encoding Naturalistic Stimuli in V1. Front Neural Circuits 10:37 |
| Kremkow, Jens; Jin, Jianzhong; Wang, Yushi et al. (2016) Principles underlying sensory map topography in primary visual cortex. Nature 533:52-7 |
| Wool, Lauren E; Komban, Stanley J; Kremkow, Jens et al. (2015) Salience of unique hues and implications for color theory. J Vis 15: |
| Zhao, Linxi; Sendek, Caroline; Davoodnia, Vandad et al. (2015) Effect of Age and Glaucoma on the Detection of Darks and Lights. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 56:7000-6 |
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