Neuronal dynamics in the visual corticothalamic pathway revealed through binocular rivalry

Single unit activity was recorded from principal cells in the A-laminae of the cat dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN). A steady state pattern of afferent activation was induced by presenting a continuously drifting square wave grating of constant spatial frequency to the eye (the dominant eye) that provided the excitatory input to the recorded cell. Intermittently, a second grating stimulus was presented to the other, nondominant, eye. In most neurones nondominant eye stimulation led to inhibition of relay cell responses. The latency of this suppressive effect was unusually long (up to 1 s) and its intensity and duration depended critically on the similarity between the gratings that were presented to the two eyes. Typically suppression was strongest when the gratings differed in orientation, direction of movement and contrast and when the nondominant eye stimulus was moving rather than stationary. Ablation of visual cortex abolished these long latency and feature-dependent interferences. We conclude that the visual cortex and the corticothalamic projections are involved in the mediation of these interocular interactions. We interpret our results as support for the hypothesis that corticothalamic feedback modifies thalamic transmission as a function of the congruency between ongoing cortical activation patterns and afferent retinal signals.