The distribution of retino-collicular axon terminals in rhesus monkey

The retino-collicular projections in rhesus monkeys were studied using standard autoradiographic and degeneration techniques. A computer based technique was developed which provided a flattened visual display of the retinal projection onto the entire superior colliculus, quantified the area covered by such projections for different segments of the colliculus and showed how this morphological pattern varied with depth beneath the collicular surface. In the anterolateral third of the colliculus (i.e., the foveal representation) the retinal projection was light, confined to a narrow region of the superficial gray and contributed primarily by the contralateral eye. In the remaining binocular segment of the superior colliculus the retinal projections showed a marked degree of local patterning, that in many instances appeared as bands of label. By combining eye removal and eye injection procedures in a single animal and comparing adjacent sections processed for autoradiography and stained for degeneration, it was possible to assess the amount of overlap between retino-collicular projections from the two eyes. These experiments showed that total segregation of retinal afferents does occur in the monkey superior colliculus, but what occurs more often is a situation where the density of inputs from the two eyes varies reciprocally as one moves across the part of the colliculus that represents the binocular visual field.