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Related Experiment Videos

Experimentally induced visual projections into auditory thalamus and cortex.

M Sur1, P E Garraghty, A W Roe

  • 1Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge 02139.

Science (New York, N.Y.)
|December 9, 1988
PubMed
Summary

Newborn ferrets rerouted visual pathways to the auditory thalamus, creating visually responsive cells in the medial geniculate nucleus and auditory cortex. This demonstrates that early brain wiring can alter sensory modality assignments.

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Developmental Neuroscience
  • Sensory Systems

Background:

  • The modality of sensory processing areas, like the auditory thalamus, is typically determined by their developmental inputs.
  • Retinal axons normally project to visual thalamic nuclei, while auditory pathways target the medial geniculate nucleus (MGN).

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if functional visual pathways can be experimentally established within the auditory thalamus and cortex.
  • To determine if the modality of a brain region can be altered by manipulating early axonal projections during development.

Main Methods:

  • Newborn ferrets underwent surgical manipulation to reduce normal retinal axon targets and create space in the auditory thalamus.
  • Electrophysiological recordings were used to assess neuronal responses in the MGN and primary auditory cortex.

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Main Results:

  • Retinal axons successfully projected to the MGN, and many MGN cells became visually driven with large receptive fields.
  • Visually responsive cells with characteristics similar to visual cortex cells were found in the primary auditory cortex.
  • Some visual cells in the auditory cortex exhibited direction selectivity and oriented receptive fields.

Conclusions:

  • Functional visual pathways can be routed into non-auditory brain structures in mammals.
  • The modality of thalamic nuclei and cortical areas may be specified by their developmental inputs, highlighting neural plasticity.