Regressive changes among corticocortical neurons projecting from the lateral suprasylvian cortex to area 18 of the...

The postnatal development of corticocortical neurons projecting from the medial bank of the lateral suprasylvian cortex to area 18 of the kitten's visual cortex was examined using retrograde fluorescent tracers. Area 18 was injected in young kittens aged nine days or less and in older kittens aged 30 days or more. Many of the injected kittens were perfused with fixative four to five days later, but some of the youngest were killed after longer survival periods of 35-50 days (long-survival animals). Labelled neurons in the medial bank of the lateral suprasylvian cortex were densely distributed in both superficial layers (II and III) and deep layers (V and VI) in the kittens injected less than nine days postnatal, irrespective of whether survival was short or long, but they were found almost exclusively in layers V and VI in the old, short-survival animals. Only in the group of old kittens did we find a clear topographical arrangement of projections in the rostrocaudal direction and a correlation between the rostrocaudal lengths of the injection sites and labelled areas. In the other two groups, for a similarly sized injection site, the labelled areas were much longer rostrocaudally than in the old, short-survival kittens, and occupied roughly the posterior two-thirds of the medial bank of the lateral suprasylvian cortex, irrespective of the positions of the injections. In the frontal plane, topography was unclear in all groups. These findings demonstrate that there is considerable postnatal refinement of the projection from the medial bank of the lateral suprasylvian cortex to area 18. This involves a loss of connections originating from superficial layers and a decrease of convergence with the appearance of topography. Our results from long-survival kittens suggest that most of the early exuberant population of corticocortical neurons projecting from the medial bank of the lateral suprasylvian cortex to area 18 survive beyond the first postnatal month but undergo axonal elimination during this period.