Grating detection and visual acuity after lesions of striate cortex in hooded rats

The ability of rats to detect high-contrast square-wave gratings over a range of spatial frequencies was measured before and after ablation of striate cortex. The animals relearnt to detect low-frequency gratings very quickly after operation, and their acuity was reduced from 1.0 c/deg to about 0.7 c/deg. These effects were in striking contrast to those produced by larger posterior cortical ablations, which included both striate and prestriate cortex (Dean 1978); after the larger lesions, rats required many weeks of retraining to detect even low-frequency gratings and their acuity was reduced to 0.3 c/deg. The difference in the effects of the two lesions suggested that the rats with striate ablation were using information about spatial contrast that was relayed either by spared remnants of the geniculo-cortical pathway, or by the pathway from superior colliculus to prestriate cortex via the lateral posterior nucleus. To try and distinguish between these possibilities, the destriate rats were given a further lesion of the superior colliculus. This second lesion severely disrupted contrast detection: the animals made about as many errors as rats with large posterior cortical removal in relearning to detect a low-frequency grating, which is about 20 to 30 times as many as after either striate cortex or superior colliculus lesions alone. This result suggests that rats, like other mammals, can use spatial information conveyed in the tectocortical path when striate cortex has been destroyed.