Neuronal population activity of visuo-motor transformation in the superior colliculus

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26750382
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Brain biometrics
• Research Institution: National Institute for Physiological Sciences
• Principal Investigator: KASAI Masatoshi 生理学研究所, 発達生理学研究系, 特別協力研究員 (70625269)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 上丘 / マウス / ２光子顕微鏡 / in vivo イメージング / 側方抑制 / 視覚 / サッカード / 眼球運動

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The superior colliculus (SC) is a brainstem center which plays essential roles in mediating the signal for sensory-motor translation. It has been hypothesized that horizontal excitatory and inhibitory interaction in the sSC is important for target selection, however; the way of neuronal implementation remained elusive, especially at the neuronal population level.
In this study we applied in vivo two-photon Ca2+ imaging and simultaneously recored neuronal population activities evoked by visual stimuli. I examined excitatory and inhibitory interaction by presenting spatially separated visual stimuli and stimulus with different sizes. I found that Mexican hat-like lateral interaction is implemented as a neuronal population activity. I also recorded eye movements from head-fixed awake mice. To induce saccade-like eye movement frequently, I tested several kinds of visual stimuli which contains motional information.

Free Research Field

神経生物学