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Acute lesions of primary visual cortical areas in adult cats inactivate responses of neurons in higher visual cortices
ZHANG, Hui; MENG,Jian-Jun; WANG, Ke; LIU, Rui-Long; XI, Min-Min & HUA, Tian-Miao
Abstract
Psychophysical studies suggest that lateral extrastriate visual cortical areas in cats may mediate the sparing
of vision largely by network reorganization following lesions of early visual cortical areas. To date, however, there is little
direct physiological evidence to support this hypothesis. Using in vivo single-unit recording techniques, we examined the
response of neurons in areas 19, 21, and 20 to different types of visual stimulation in cats with or without acute bilateral
lesions in areas 17 and 18. Our results showed that, relative to the controls, acute lesions inactivated the response of
99.3% of neurons to moving gratings and 93% of neurons to flickering square stimuli in areas 19, 21, and 20. These
results indicated that acute lesions of primary visual areas in adult cats may impair most visual abilities. Sparing of vision
in cats with neonatal lesions in early visual cortical areas may result largely from a postoperative reorganization of visual
pathways from subcortical nucleus to extrastriate visual cortical areas.
Keywords
Acute lesion; Primary visual cortical areas; Neuronal response; Areas 19, 21 and 20
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