Organization of retinal axons within the optic nerve, optic chiasm, and the innervation of multiple central nervous...

Light microscopic analysis of the optic nerve, chiasm, and optic tracts of Rana pipiens after the anterograde and retrograde transport of horseradish peroxidase has shown that retinal ganglion-cell axons reach the optic nerve head in chronotopically organized fascicles that form bands across the intraocular optic nerve. These bands of fascicles are divided along the midline in a "zone of reorganization" to create two full maps of the retinal surface; however, this map is discontinuous in that nasal and temporal quadrants are adjacent to one another. In the intracranial portion of the optic nerve, axons undergo another reorganization such that peripheral retinal axons shift position and become localized laterally and ventrally, whereas centrally placed axons become localized dorsally. Within this reorganization, the nerve is reconfigured into laminae of axons, and each lamina consists of age-related axons organized into two retinal maps. In the ipsilateral chiasm, axons diverge to form three central, optic tracts: the medial optic tract, the projection to the corpus geniculatum, and the basal optic root. Ipsilateral axons leave the chiasm at the same level of the chiasm as do their contralateral counterparts. The remaining axons converge in the lateral diencephalon to form a fourth fascicle, the marginal optic tract. Thus, within the optic chiasm, a sequence of positional transformations occur that result in the formation of multiple optic pathways. The various changes in axonal trajectory always coincide with changes in the orientation of cell groups that lie within the nerve and optic chiasm.