Interhemispheric influences on area 19 of the cat

Anatomical studies have shown an extensive network of homotopic and heterotopic interhemispheric connections in area 19 of the cat visual cortex (Segraves and Rosenquist 1982a; 1982b). We have investigated their functional organization by recording visual responses in area 19 of cats following a midsagittal section of the optic chiasm. This operation interrupts all crossed optic fibers coming both from the nasal and the temporal retinae; as a result, each hemisphere receives optic fibers only from the lateral hemiretina of the ipsilateral eye which conveys information from the contralateral visual field. Visual information transmitted to the same hemisphere from the contralateral retina and the ipsilateral visual field must be attributed to an indirect, interhemispheric pathway. We found that a rather high proportion of neurons (31.8%) in area 19 of seven split-chiasm cats responded to visual stimuli presented to the contralateral eye. All neurons receiving this interhemispheric activation were also driven by the ipsilateral eye via an intrahemispheric pathway. The property of binocularity was significantly related to the visuotopic map in that both receptive fields of each binocular neuron adjoined or were in the immediate vicinity of the vertical meridian. Due to the small size of receptive fields in area 19, the contribution of the interhemispheric pathway to the representation of the visual field is rather limited and it is certainly less extensive than that predicted by anatomical studies. The representation of the ipsilateral visual field in area 19 of intact cats, as assessed electrophysiologically, was comparable to that found in split-chiasm cats. Recordings in areas 17-18 of split-chiasm cats showed that the visual field represented through the corpus callosum in these visual areas is certainly not less and probably more, extensive than that found in area 19. The results support the conclusion that the relation to the vertical meridian and the receptive field size can explain the organization of the interhemispheric connections in the visual areas studied so far.