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Read this paper. Chellazi et al. (1993) Nature 363 Pg 345 - 347 . Different Pathways , Different Processes. Retinocollicular vs. Retinostriate. Recall that 10% of optic nerve gets routed through the Superior Colliculus (SC) What does it do?
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Read this paper • Chellazi et al. (1993) Nature 363 Pg 345 - 347
Retinocollicular vs. Retinostriate • Recall that 10% of optic nerve gets routed through the Superior Colliculus (SC) • What does it do? • SC contributes to control of eye movements (saccade vector maps) • SC and Pulvinar contribute to orienting of attention
Superior Colliculus • Superior Colliculus (SC) contributes to control of eye movements • a saccade is a rapid eye movement • SC contains a retinotopic map of possible saccade vectors • Activation of particular cells guides eyes to specific location Does SC contribute to orienting even when “main” visual pathway is disrupted? left right
Lesions of Retinostriate Pathway • Lesions (usually due to stroke) cause a region of blindness called a scotoma • Identified using perimetry • note macular sparing X
Retinocollicular Pathway Might Independently Mediate Orienting • The theory is that the retinocollicular pathway continues to operate despite lesions in the retinostriate pathway • note this is somewhat counterintuitive in that it predicts people should be able to orient to visual objects that they can’t “see”
Retinocollicular Pathway Might Independently Mediate Orienting • Weiskrantz (1986) • subject fixates at centre • target appears in periphery and subject saccades to target • in control condition, no light appears • Importantly, both conditions appear the same to subject!
Retinocollicular Pathway Might Independently Mediate Orienting • Prediction: subject should be able to orient accurately to the target even when it is in the blind field
Retinocollicular Pathway independently mediates orienting • Subject was able to orient with relatively good accuracy up to about 25 degrees
Blindsight • Intact retinocollicular pathway mediates eye movements despite V1 lesions • Might it also orient attention? The theory is that it does.
Retinocollicular Pathway independently mediates orienting • Rafal et al. (1990) • Prediction: visual stimuli in scotoma should interfere with (i.e. distract) orienting to stimuli in the good field • subjects move eyes to fixate a peripheral target in two different conditions: • target alone
Retinocollicular Pathway independently mediates orienting • Rafal et al. (1990) • Prediction: visual stimuli in scotoma should interfere with (i.e. distract) orienting to stimuli in the good field • subjects move eyes to fixate a peripheral target in two different conditions: • target alone • accompanied by distractor
Retinocollicular Pathway independently mediates orienting • Rafal et al. (1990) result • Subjects were slower when presented with a distracting stimulus in the scotoma (359 ms vs. 500 ms)
Retinocollicular Pathway independently mediates orienting • Blindsight patients have since been shown to posses a surprising range of “residual” visual abilities • better than chance at detection and discrimination of some visual features such as direction of motion • These go beyond simple orienting - how can this be?
Retinocollicular Pathway independently mediates orienting • Recall that the feed-forward sweep in not a single wave of information and that it doesn’t only go through V1
Retinocollicular Pathway independently mediates orienting • Recall that the feed-forward sweep in not a single wave of information and that it doesn’t only go through V1 • In particular, MT seems to get very early and direct input
Retinocollicular Pathway independently mediates orienting • The theory is that direct connections from the retinocollicular pathway to MT mediate residual vision for moving stimuli • Giaschi et al (2003): tested patient with bilateral V1 lesions • since birth • little or no visual awareness (aware of some fast moving stimuli) • striking “blindsight” capabilities
Retinocollicular Pathway independently mediates orienting • Prediction: • moving dots compared to stationary dots should show activation of MT despite ablated V1
Retinocollicular Pathway independently mediates orienting • Result: • Hemodynamic activity was in various other non-visual areas
Retinocollicular Pathway independently mediates orienting • Interpretation: • Patient’s brain underwent profoundly different development trajectory early in life • Functionally “remapped