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Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex

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Author Spotlight: Deciphering Neural Circuit Formation from Two-Photon Microscopy and Single Neuron Imaging

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Spatial clustering of tuning in mouse primary visual cortex.

Dario L Ringach^1,2, Patrick J Mineault¹, Elaine Tring¹

¹Department of Neurobiology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.

Nature Communications

|August 3, 2016

Summary

Mouse primary visual cortex neurons show weak spatial clustering, challenging the salt-and-pepper map model. This suggests a degraded version of the organization seen in higher mammals, hinting at common evolutionary origins.

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Visual System Organization
Mammalian Brain Evolution

Background:

The primary visual cortex in higher mammals exhibits organized 2D maps of neuronal tuning.
Rodent visual cortex is traditionally described as a random 'salt-and-pepper' map.
Understanding visual cortex organization is key to deciphering sensory processing.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the spatial organization of receptive fields in the mouse primary visual cortex.
To determine if mouse visual cortex exhibits any form of spatial clustering.
To compare the organization of mouse visual cortex to that of higher mammals.

Main Methods:

Measured neuronal tuning in the joint orientation and spatial frequency domain.
Analyzed the spatial arrangement of pyramidal neurons in the mouse primary visual cortex.
Examined tuning similarity as a function of cortical distance and depth.

Main Results:

Neuronal tuning similarity decreased with increasing cortical distance, indicating weak spatial clustering.
Statistically significant clustering was observed on the cortical surface.
Clustering was also present across different cortical depths, suggesting columnar organization.

Conclusions:

The mouse primary visual cortex is not a strict salt-and-pepper map.
It displays a degraded form of the organized mapping found in higher mammals, even on a local scale.
This finding suggests a potential common evolutionary origin for visual cortex organization across mammals.