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Updated: Jun 3, 2026

Using Looming Visual Stimuli to Evaluate Mouse Vision
Published on: June 13, 2019
Thalamic pathways for active vision
Robert H Wurtz1, Kerry McAlonan, James Cavanaugh
1Laboratory of Sensorimotor Research, National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA. bob@lsr.nei.nih.gov
Abstract:
Active vision requires the integration of information coming from the retina with that generated internally within the brain, especially by saccadic eye movements. Just as visual information reaches cortex via the lateral geniculate nucleus of the thalamus, this internal information reaches the cerebral cortex through other higher-order nuclei of the thalamus. This review summarizes recent work on four of these thalamic nuclei. The first two pathways convey internal information about upcoming saccades (a corollary discharge) and probably contribute to the neuronal mechanisms that underlie stable visual perception. The second two pathways might contribute to the neuronal mechanisms underlying visual spatial attention in cortex and in the thalamus itself.
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