Mechanisms of the duplicated retinotopic map reorganization induced by monocular enucleation

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25830013
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Neurophysiology / General neuroscience
• Research Institution: Tottori University
• Principal Investigator: KAMEYAMA Katsuro 鳥取大学, 医学(系)研究科(研究院), 助教 (80446517)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 視覚 / レチノトピー

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Visual input is received by retinal ganglion cells and their axons project mainly to the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) of the thalamus. Then neurons in the LGN send their axons to the primary visual cortex (V1). Precise projections of the retinogeniculate and geniculocortical pathways render the topographic arrangement called retinotopy in the visual cortex. We used an optical imaging technique to investigate the change of the retinotopic map in the monocularly enucleated (ME) animals. We observed the duplication of the retinotopic map clearly across V1. The responding cortical area in the ME animals was larger compared with that of normal animals. To examine possible changes in the geniculocortical projections, we visualized the geniculocortical afferents in V1 and compared their location in V1 with the retinotopic map. The results suggest that the functional change of retinotopy is presumably accompanied with an anatomical alteration of the visual pathways.

Free Research Field

神経生理学