The Journal of Neuroscience, April 20, 2005, 25(16):4014-4023; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4292-04.2005
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Development/Plasticity/Repair
Early and Rapid Targeting of Eye-Specific Axonal Projections to the Dorsal Lateral Geniculate Nucleus in the Fetal Macaque
Andrew D. Huberman,1
Colette Dehay,4
Michel Berland,3,4
Leo M. Chalupa,1,2 and
Henry Kennedy4
1Center for Neuroscience and 2Section of Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior and Department of Ophthalmology, University of California, Davis, Davis, California 95616, and 3Hopital Lyon-Sud and 4Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale U371, Cerveau et Vision, Department of Cognitive Neurosciences, PrimaBio, Institut Fédératif des Neurosciences de Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, 69500 Bron, France
The emergence of eye-specific axonal projections to the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN) is a well established model system for exploring the mechanisms underlying afferent targeting during development. Using modern tract tracing methods, we examined the development of this feature in the macaque, an Old World Primate with a visual system similar to that of humans. Cholera toxin
fragment conjugated to Alexa 488 was injected into the vitreous of one eye, and CT
conjugated to Alexa 594 into the other eye of embryos at known gestational ages. On embryonic day 69 (E69), which is
100 d before birth, inputs from the two eyes were extensively intermingled in the dLGN. However, even at this early age, portions of the dLGN were preferentially innervated by the right or left eye, and segregation is complete within the dorsalmost layers 5 and 6. By E78, eye-specific segregation is clearly established throughout the parvocellular division of the dLGN, and substantial ocular segregation is present in the magnocellular division. By E84, segregation of left and right eye axons is essentially complete, and the six eye-specific domains that characterize the mature macaque dLGN are clearly discernable. These findings reveal that targeting of eye-specific axonal projections in the macaque occurs much earlier and more rapidly than previously reported. This segregation process is completed before the reported onset of ganglion cell axon loss and retino-dLGN synapse elimination, suggesting that, in the primate, eye-specific targeting occurs independent of traditional forms of synaptic plasticity.
Key words: eye-specific; retinogeniculate; visual system; primate; dLGN; axon guidance
Received Oct 14, 2004;
revised March 8, 2005;
accepted March 11, 2005.
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