Superior colliculus cell responses related to eye movements in awake monkeys

Single cell responses were recorded from the superior colliculus of awake monkeys trained to move their eyes. A class of cells that discharged before eye movements was found in the intermediate and deep layers of the colliculus. The response of the cells was most vigorous before saccadic eye movements within a particular range of directions. These cells had no visual receptive fields, and visually guided eye movements were not necessary for their discharge, since they responded in total darkness before spontaneous eye movements and vestibular nystagmus.     

Movement of neural activity on the superior colliculus motor map during gaze shifts

The superior colliculus contains neurons that cause displacements of the visual axis (gaze shifts). These cells are arranged topographically in a motor map on which the vector (amplitude and direction) of the coded movement varies continuously with location. How this spatial representation becomes a temporal code (frequency and duration) in the motoneurons is unknown. During a gaze shift, a zone of neural activity moved continuously on the map from an initial location, defining the vector of the desired gaze shift, to a final "zero" position containing neurons that were active during fixation. Thus, the spatial-temporal transformation may be accomplished by control of gaze throughout the spatial trajectory of activity on the motor map.     

Electrophysiologic responses in hamster superior colliculus evoked by regenerating retinal axons

Autologous peripheral nerve grafts were used to permit and direct the regrowth of retinal ganglion cell axons from the eye to the ipsilateral superior colliculus of adult hamsters in which the optic nerves had been transected within the orbit. Extracellular recordings in the superior colliculus 15 to 18 weeks after graft insertion revealed excitatory and inhibitory postsynaptic responses to visual stimulation. The finding of light-induced responses in neurons in the superficial layers of the superior colliculus close to the graft indicates that axons regenerating from axotomized retinal ganglion cells can establish electrophysiologically functional synapses with neurons in the superior colliculus of these adult mammals.     

Corollary discharge provides accurate eye position information to the oculomotor system

The saccadic system accurately compensates for perturbations of eye position produced by microstimulation of the superior colliculus. This requires that information about the stimulation-induced change in eye position be provided by an extraretinal source--either proprioceptive endings in extraocular muscles or a centrally generated corollary discharge. It is shown that compensation remains intact after elimination of extraocular muscle proprioception, demonstrating that corollary discharge provides accurate eye position information.     

Auditory pathways to the frontal cortex of the mustache bat, Pteronotus parnellii

In primates, certain areas of the frontal cortex play a role in guiding movements toward visual or auditory objects in space. The projections from auditory centers to the frontal cortex of the bat Pteronotus parnellii were examined because echolocating bats utilize auditory cues to guide their movements in space. An area in the frontal cortex receives a direct projection from a division of the auditory thalamus, the suprageniculate nucleus, which in turn receives input from the anterolateral peri-olivary nucleus, an auditory center in the medulla. This pathway to the frontal cortex bypasses the main auditory centers in the midbrain and cortex and could involve as few as four neurons between the cochlea and the frontal cortex. The auditory cortex is also a major source of input to the frontal cortex. This area of the frontal cortex may link the auditory and motor systems by its projections to the superior colliculus.     

三维林相图制作研究

为了实现森林的三维展示，利用数字高程模型以及ArcView、ArcMap、ERDAS等软件，进行了三维林相图的制作研究。研究结果实现了从二维林相图向三维林相图的跨越，且三维林相图比二维林相图可视性更强、更生动、更实用。     

Generation of torsional and vertical eye position signals by the interstitial nucleus of Cajal

The neural integrator, which converts eye velocity signals into position signals, is central to oculomotor theory. Similar integrators are probably necessary in any neural system that changes and maintains muscular tension. The integrator for horizontal eye position is in the pons, but the locations of the vertical and torsional integrators have not been clearly defined. Recording three-dimensional eye movements in alert monkeys during microstimulation and pharmacological inactivation of midbrain sites showed that the interstitial nucleus of Cajal generates both the torsional and vertical eye position signals. Up and down signals are linked with clockwise signals in the right brain and counterclockwise signals in the left brain. This three-dimensional coordinate system achieves orthogonality and bilateral symmetry without redundancy and optimizes energy efficiency for horizontal visual scanning.     

Reshaping the cortical motor map by unmasking latent intracortical connections

The primary motor cortex (MI) contains a map organized so that contralateral limb or facial movements are elicited by electrical stimulation within separate medial to lateral MI regions. Within hours of a peripheral nerve transection in adult rats, movements represented in neighboring MI areas are evoked from the cortical territory of the affected body part. One potential mechanism for reorganization is that adjacent cortical regions expand when preexisting lateral excitatory connections are unmasked by decreased intracortical inhibition. During pharmacological blockade of cortical inhibition in one part of the MI representation, movements of neighboring representations were evoked by stimulation in adjacent MI areas. These results suggest that intracortical connections form a substrate for reorganization of cortical maps and that inhibitory circuits are critically placed to maintain or readjust the form of cortical motor representations.     

A structural basis for Hering's law: projections to extraocular motoneurons

Conjugate eye movements are executed through the concurrent activation of several muscles in both eyes. The neural mechanisms that underlie such synergistic muscle activations have been a matter of considerable experimentation and debate. In order to investigate this issue, the projections of a class of primate premotoneuronal cells were studied, namely, the vertical medium-lead burst neurons (VMLBs), which drive vertical rapid eye movements. Axons of upward VMLBs ramify bilaterally within motoneuron pools that supply the superior rectus and inferior oblique muscles of both eyes. Axons of downward VMLBs ramify ipsilaterally in the inferior rectus portion of the oculomotor nucleus and in the trochlear nucleus. Thus, VMLBs can drive vertical motoneuron pools of both eyes during conjugate vertical rapid eye movements; these data support Hering's law.     

Descending efferents from the superior colliculus relay integrated multisensory information

By means of their efferent projections to motor and premotor structures, the cells in the deep superior colliculus are intimately involved in behaviors that control the orientation of the eyes, pinnae, and head. These same efferent cells receive multiple sensory inputs, thereby apparently enabling an animal to orient its receptor organs in response to a wide variety of cues. This sensory convergence also provides a system in which motor responses need not be immutably linked to individual stimuli but can vary in reaction to the multitude of stimuli present in the environment at any given moment.     

Computations underlying the execution of movement: a biological perspective

To execute voluntary movements, the central nervous system must transform the neural representation of the direction, amplitude, and velocity of the limb, represented by the activity of cortical and subcortical neurons, into signals that activate the muscles that move the limb. This task is equivalent to solving an "ill-posed" computational problem because the number of degrees of freedom of the musculoskeletal apparatus is much larger than that specified in the plan of action. Some of the mechanisms and circuitry underlying the transformation of motor plans into motor commands are described. A central feature of this transformation is a coarse map of limb postures in the premotor areas of the spinal cord. Vectorial combination of motor outputs among different areas of the spinal map may produce a large repertoire of motor behaviors.     

Superior colliculus of the tree shrew: a structural and functional subdivision into superficial and deep layers

Superficial lesions of the superior colliculus produced deficits in form discrimination, while deeper lesions produced, in addition, an inability to track objects. These two syndromes were related to an anatomical subdivision: Superficial lesions resulted in anterograde degeneration in the visual thalamus, whereas lesions confined to the deeper layers produced degeneration in the nonvisual thalamus and in brainstem motor areas.     

The neural basis for learning of simple motor skills

The vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) is a simple movement that has been used to investigate the neural basis for motor learning in monkeys. The function of the VOR is to stabilize retinal images by generating smooth eye movements that are equal and opposite to each head movement. Learning occurs whenever image motion occurs persistently during head turns; as a result image stability is gradually restored. A hypothesis is proposed in which the output from the cerebellar cortex of the flocculus guides learning; the locus of learning is in the brain stem, in VOR pathways that are under inhibitory control from the flocculus. Other, parallel VOR pathways do not receive inputs from the flocculus and are not subject to learning. Similarities among the VOR and other motor systems suggest some organizing principles that may apply in many forms of motor learning.     

The latency of pathways containing the site of motor learning in the monkey vestibulo-ocular reflex

The vestibulo-ocular reflex helps to stabilize retinal images by generating smooth eye movements that are equal to and opposite each rotatory head movement. It is well known that the reflex undergoes adaptive plasticity or "motor learning" whenever there is persistent image motion during head turns: the resulting changes in the reflex occur gradually and help to restore image stability. A new approach makes it possible to identify the pathways containing the site of motor learning according to their total latency in response to natural vestibular stimuli. The fastest pathways required 14 milliseconds to initiate a vestibulo-ocular reflex, but the site of motor learning was in pathways having latencies of at least 19 milliseconds.     

Brain stem neurons in modified pathways for motor learning in the primate vestibulo-ocular reflex

The vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) stabilizes retinal images by generating smooth eye movements that are equal in amplitude and opposite in direction to head turns. Whenever image motion occurs persistently during head turns, the VOR undergoes motor learning; as a result image stability is gradually restored. A group of brain stem neurons that are in the modified pathways has now been described. The neurons express changes in firing in association with motor learning in the VOR and receive monosynaptic inhibition from the flocculus of the cerebellum. The changes in firing have an appropriate magnitude and are expressed at the correct latency to account for the altered VOR. The response properties of the neurons point to their brain stem vestibular inputs for further investigation of the site of motor learning.     

Adenosine receptors: autoradiographic evidence for their location on axon terminals of excitatory neurons

Adenosine receptors were made visible on light microscopy by autoradiography with tritiated cyclohexyladenosine. In the cerebellum, adenosine receptors were absent in Weaver mice, which lack granule cells, and were displaced in Reeler mice, which have displacements of granule cells. Thus, adenosine receptors appear to be located on the axon terminals of excitatory granule cells in the cerebellum. Removal of one eye of a rat depleted adenosine receptors in the contralateral superior colliculus, suggesting that the receptors occur on axon terminals of excitatory projections from retinal ganglion cells. The presence of adenosine receptors on excitatory axon terminals may explain synaptic inhibition by adenosine and the behavioral effects of xanthines.     

A pathway in primate brain for internal monitoring of movements

It is essential to keep track of the movements we make, and one way to do that is to monitor correlates, or corollary discharges, of neuronal movement commands. We hypothesized that a previously identified pathway from brainstem to frontal cortex might carry corollary discharge signals. We found that neuronal activity in this pathway encodes upcoming eye movements and that inactivating the pathway impairs sequential eye movements consistent with loss of corollary discharge without affecting single eye movements. These results identify a pathway in the brain of the primate Macaca mulatta that conveys corollary discharge signals.     

Computer graphic display method for visualizing three-dimensional biological structures

A computer graphic display method that produces two-dimensional perspective views of three-dimensional objects is presented. The method is applied to the reconstruction at a resolution of 2.2 nanometers of the neck of bacteriophage phi 29, obtained from transmission electron micrographs processed by the direct Fourier method. The combined use of directed illumination, reflectance models, color, and different levels of transparency provides a powerful tool for a better interpretation of the three-dimensional structure, allowing improved correlation with genetic, structural, and biochemical data.     

校园三维虚拟漫游系统的建设研究

以山东农业大学北校区1:500的数字化地形图和遥感影像为底图,研究采用3Ds MAX软件对校园进行三维建模并利用虚拟现实平台VR-Platform构建校园漫游系统的方法.结果表明,该综合方案能够有效地保证模型的精度和实时渲染的要求,为今后的三维校园模型建立和漫游提供技术依据.