Article
Neurosciences
Yufei Si, Shinya Ito, Alan M. Litke, David A. Feldheim
Summary: This study investigates the lack of frontal auditory receptive fields (RFs) in C57BL/6 mice and finds that they lack the ability to detect high-frequency spectral cues. The researchers also demonstrate that crossing and gene introduction can improve the auditory deficits in C57BL/6 mice.
Article
Biology
Ya-tang Li, Markus Meister
Summary: The superior colliculus in the brain is a crucial visual processing station that receives input from various types of retinal ganglion cells. Through recording mouse superficial SC neurons, we identified 24 functional types using an unsupervised clustering algorithm. These types can be grouped into two categories: one that responds similarly to retinal ganglion cells and another with more diverse and specialized stimulus selectivity. Cells of the same functional type tend to cluster together in anatomical space, and the visual representation in the SC has lower dimensionality compared to the retina, suggesting a sifting process along the visual pathway.
Article
Neurosciences
Hui Chen, Elise L. Savier, Victor J. DePiero, Jianhua Cang
Summary: Through studying the mouse superior colliculus, it was found that direction-selective neurons are not organized into stereotypical columns, but rather exist in clusters. This phenomenon is not affected by factors such as animal state, SC depth, research technique, and stimulus type, challenging recent reports on region-specific organizations in the mouse SC.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Kristy O. Johnson, Leeor Harel, Jason W. Triplett
Summary: This study investigated the role of NMDA receptors in visual map alignment in the superior colliculus (SC). Conditional genetic knockout of the NMDA receptor subunit GluN1 in the SC disrupted the organization of L5-V1 axon terminals, indicating that NMDA receptors play a critical role in visual map alignment. These findings suggest that NMDA receptors are essential mediators of activity-dependent visual map alignment in the SC.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Qingpeng Yu, Hang Fu, Gang Wang, Jiayi Zhang, Biao Yan
Summary: The study found that visual experience can potentiate spontaneous activity in mouse superior colliculus neurons, with feature selectivity for direction and orientation. By stimulating retinal ganglion cells or optogenetically activating parvalbumin neurons, this potentiation can be attenuated or blocked.
NEUROSCIENCE BULLETIN
(2021)
Review
Neurosciences
Thomas Wheatcroft, Aman B. Saleem, Samuel G. Solomon
Summary: The superior colliculus (SC) is a highly conserved area in the mammalian midbrain that is involved in the organization and control of behavior. Recent studies in mice have provided anatomical data and experimental evidence to understand the roles of different cells within SC in simple behaviors. The functional organization of SC can be explained by three distinct circuits supporting three classes of simple behaviors- arrest, turning towards, and the triggering of escape or capture.
FRONTIERS IN NEURAL CIRCUITS
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Teresa Guillamon-Vivancos, Mar Anibal-Martinez, Lorenzo Puche-Aroca, Juan Antonio Moreno-Bravo, Miguel Valdeolmillos, Francisco J. Martini, Guillermina Lopez-Bendito
Summary: This study found that the segregation of sensory pathways is closely related to early retinal activity. During the embryonic period, somatosensory and visual circuits are intermingled, but they gradually separate into distinct pathways after birth. Blocking early retinal activity prolongs the existence of multimodal configuration and leads to spatial organization defects in the visual system.
Article
Biochemical Research Methods
Shinya Ito, Yufei Si, Alan M. Litke, David A. Feldheim
Summary: This study found that mouse SC neurons exhibit nonlinear multisensory integration, which depends on properties of auditory stimuli. The research reveals conditions for sensory integration consistent with previously proposed models, and provides a theoretical basis for further studies using mouse models.
PLOS COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Philipp Norton, Jonathan I. Benichov, Margarida Pexirra, Susanne Schreiber, Daniela Vallentin
Summary: This study reveals the neural circuitry mechanisms that regulate the timing of vocal replies, showing that feedforward inhibition can modulate the temporal tuning of vocal premotor drive and suppress vocalization during auditory processing. The study also identifies auditory-evoked response patterns in inhibitory interneurons and the impact of feedforward inhibition on the timing of vocal responses.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Masatoshi Kasai, Tadashi Isa
Summary: This study found that changes in brain states can affect the selectivity of SC neurons and the organization of neuronal populations. Under isoflurane anesthesia, orientation selectivity increased and more orientation-selective cells were observed, while the proportions of direction-selective cells were similar in both conditions. Additionally, neurons with similar preferences located closer together and showed enhanced cluster-like spatial patterns.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Anatomy & Morphology
Yanshuai Tu, Xin Li, Zhong-Lin Lu, Yalin Wang
Summary: Retinotopic maps, which are important in vision science, are limited by the signal-to-noise ratio and spatial resolution of fMRI. We developed a new registration method called Diffeomorphic Registration for Retinotopic Maps (DRRM) to improve the quality of retinotopic maps by aligning them under the diffeomorphic condition. DRRM outperforms existing methods in achieving diffeomorphic registration in both synthetic and real datasets, and it may have applications in clinical settings.
BRAIN STRUCTURE & FUNCTION
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Claire Rusch, Diego Alonso San Alberto, Jeffrey A. Riffell
Summary: The study found that neural activity in the medulla of a female honeybee is modulated by locomotion, especially when the bee has behavioral control over the visual stimulus. Furthermore, there is a relationship between neuromodulation and adaptive control of the visual environment of the bee.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Maurits M. van den Berg, Esmee Busscher, J. Gerard G. Borst, Aaron B. Wong
Summary: This study investigated the AM detection threshold and neuronal encoding of mice using operant conditioning and in vivo electrophysiology. The results showed that mice have good detection ability for high modulation frequencies up to 512 Hz but poorer performance for low frequencies. Neural recordings in the inferior colliculus revealed some single units with phase-locking ability to 512 Hz modulation, but this could not fully explain the behavioral detection. A population response model suggested that a subset of neurons showing large firing rate changes in response to AM stimuli play an important role in the behavioral detection by mice.
JOURNAL OF NEUROPHYSIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Zhuzhu Zhang, Jingtian Zhou, Pengcheng Tan, Yan Pang, Angeline C. Rivkin, Megan A. Kirchgessner, Elora Williams, Cheng-Ta Lee, Hanqing Liu, Alexis D. Franklin, Paula Assakura Miyazaki, Anna Bartlett, Andrew Aldridge, Minh Vu, Lara Boggeman, Conor Fitzpatrick, Joseph R. Nery, Rosa G. Castanon, Mohammad Rashid, Matthew W. Jacobs, Tony Ito-Cole, Carolyn O'Connor, Antonio Pinto-Duartec, Bertha Dominguez, Jared B. Smith, Sheng-Yong Niu, Kuo-Fen Lee, Xin Jin, Eran A. Mukamel, M. Margarita Behrens, Joseph R. Ecker, Edward M. Callaway
Summary: By combining retrograde labeling with single-nucleus DNA methylation sequencing, researchers were able to identify unique epigenetic signatures of projection neurons that corresponded to their laminar and regional location and projection patterns. These findings helped to distinguish intra-telencephalic cells projecting to different cortical targets and confirmed the correlation between L5ET cortical neurons and their axonal projections.
Review
Physiology
K. Guadalupe Cruz, Yi Ning Leow, Nhat Minh Le, Elie Adam, Rafiq Huda, Mriganka Sur
Summary: Flexibly selecting appropriate actions in complex, ever-changing environments requires cooperation between cortical and subcortical regions. Recent studies show that behavior is represented by brainwide activity, challenging the traditional view of top-down control. The thalamus plays a crucial role in these interactions, forming parallel loops and complex networks with other regions.
PHYSIOLOGICAL REVIEWS
(2023)
