Interocular transfer in parallel visual pathways in pigeons

Pigeons were trained to perform intensity, color and pattern tasks monocularly. After their training was completed, a unilateral electrolytic lesion was made either in the nucleus rotundus or in the nucleus opticus principalis thalami (OPT). The lesion was made in the trained hemisphere (contralateral to the trained eye) in half of the subjects and in the untrained hemisphere in the other half. After a 7-day recovery period the birds were retrained on the same tasks with the previously untrained eye. A rotundal lesion, on either side, resulted in the loss of interocular transfer of discrimination, whereas neither contralateral nor ipsilateral OPT lesions affected discrimination. These results suggest that the tectofugal visual pathway plays a crucial role in the interhemispheric transfer of visual information in pigeons.