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The Journal of Neuroscience, November 26, 2008, 28(48):12654-12671; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2986-08.2008

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
The Smooth Monostratified Ganglion Cell: Evidence for Spatial Diversity in the Y-Cell Pathway to the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus and Superior Colliculus in the Macaque Monkey

Joanna D. Crook,^1,2 Beth B. Peterson,¹ Orin S. Packer,¹ Farrel R. Robinson,^1,5 Paul D. Gamlin,³ John B. Troy,⁴ and Dennis M. Dacey^1,5

¹Department of Biological Structure and ²Graduate Program in Neurobiology and Behavior, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, ³Department of Vision Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama 35294, ⁴Department of Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, and ⁵Washington National Primate Research Center, Seattle, Washington 98195

Correspondence should be addressed to Dennis M. Dacey, Department of Biological Structure, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195. Email: dmd{at}u.washington.edu

In the primate visual system approximately 20 morphologically distinct pathways originate from retinal ganglion cells and project in parallel to the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) and/or the superior colliculus. Understanding of the properties of these pathways and the significance of such extreme early pathway diversity for later visual processing is limited. In a companion study we found that the magnocellular LGN-projecting parasol ganglion cells also projected to the superior colliculus and showed Y-cell receptive field structure supporting the hypothesis that the parasol cells are analogous to the well studied alpha-Y cell of the cat's retina. We here identify a novel ganglion cell class, the smooth monostratified cells, that share many properties with the parasol cells. Smooth cells were retrogradely stained from tracer injections made into either the LGN or superior colliculus and formed inner-ON and outer-OFF populations with narrowly monostratified dendritic trees that surprisingly appeared to perfectly costratify with the dendrites of parasol cells. Also like parasol cells, smooth cells summed input from L- and M-cones, lacked measurable S-cone input, showed high spike discharge rates, high contrast and temporal sensitivity, and a Y-cell type nonlinear spatial summation. Smooth cells were distinguished from parasol cells however by smaller cell body and axon diameters but 2 times larger dendritic tree and receptive field diameters that formed a regular but lower density mosaic organization. We suggest that the smooth and parasol populations may sample a common presynaptic circuitry but give rise to distinct, parallel achromatic spatial channels in the primate retinogeniculate pathway.

Key words: primate; superior colliculus; retina; magnocellular LGN; Y-cell; spatial vision

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Received June 27, 2008; revised Oct. 14, 2008; accepted Oct. 16, 2008.

Correspondence should be addressed to Dennis M. Dacey, Department of Biological Structure, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195. Email: dmd{at}u.washington.edu

Related articles in J. Neurosci.:

The Primate Retina Contains Distinct Types of Y-Like Ganglion Cells

Ari Rosenberg and Vargha Talebi
J. Neurosci. 2009 29: 5048-5050. [Full Text]  

This article has been cited by other articles:

				A. Rosenberg and V. Talebi The Primate Retina Contains Distinct Types of Y-Like Ganglion Cells J. Neurosci., April 22, 2009; 29(16): 5048 - 5050. [Full Text] [PDF]

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