Binns KE; Salt TE; (1997) Post eye-opening maturation of visual receptive field diameters
in the superior colliculus of normal- and dark-reared rats. Developmental Brain Research,
99: 263-266.
When the rat's eyes open (P14) the retino-collicular projection is largely mature but the
cortico-collicular afferents are naive and mature considerably in the following week. At P14,
single units in the superior colliculus' superficial grey layer (SGS) had discrete receptive fields
(RFs) (diameter = 15 +/- 1.6 Degrees) which expanded with age, reaching 30 +/- 2.6 Degrees at
P21, possibly reflecting the increasing influence of the visual cortex, whose RFs are known to be
enlarged at P21. Subsequently SGS RFs retracted to 13 +/- 1.3 Degrees by P23. Dark-reared (DR)
rats followed a similar but delayed developmental pattern, such that RFs were still large (27 +/-
3.4 Degrees) at P24. By P30 however the RFs of DR rats were the same as those of normal adults.
Thus visual experience accelerates the emergence of normal RFs in the SGS.
More about Superior Colliculus |
Last Updated June 4, 1997.