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The Journal of Neuroscience, September 30, 2009, 29(39):12159-12166; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1986-09.2009

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Color-Related Signals in the Primate Superior Colliculus

Brian J. White,¹ Susan E. Boehnke,¹ Robert A. Marino,¹ Laurent Itti,² and Douglas P. Munoz¹

¹Centre for Neuroscience Studies, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6, Canada, and ²Department of Computer Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089

Correspondence should be addressed to Brian J. White at the above address. Email: brianw{at}biomed.queensu.ca

Color is important for segmenting objects from backgrounds, which can in turn facilitate visual search in complex scenes. However, brain areas involved in orienting the eyes toward colored stimuli in our environment are not believed to have access to color information. Here, we show that neurons in the intermediate layers of the monkey superior colliculus (SC), a critical structure for the production of saccadic eye movements, can respond to isoluminant color stimuli with the same magnitude as a maximum contrast luminance stimulus. In contrast, neurons from the superficial SC layers showed little color-related activity. Crucially, visual onset latencies were 30–35 ms longer for color, implying that luminance and chrominance information reach the SC through distinct pathways and that the observed color-related activity is not the result of residual luminance signals. Furthermore, these differences in visual onset latency translated directly into differences in saccadic reaction time. The results demonstrate that the saccadic system can signal the presence of chromatic stimuli only one stage from the brainstem premotor circuitry that drives the eyes.

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Received April 27, 2009; revised July 24, 2009; accepted Aug. 24, 2009.

Correspondence should be addressed to Brian J. White at the above address. Email: brianw{at}biomed.queensu.ca

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