Visual experience before eye-opening is not usually thought to have any developmental significance. Here we show that naturalistic visual stimuli presented through unopened eyelids robustly activate neurons in the ferret dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus. Further, dark-rearing prior to natural eye-opening has striking effects upon geniculate physiology. Receptive field maps after dark-rearing s...

Primary and secondary visual cortex (V1 and V2) form the foundation of the cortical visual system. V1 transforms information received from the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) and distributes it to separate domains in V2 for transmission to higher visual areas. During the past 20 years, schemes for the functional organization of V1 and V2 have been based on a tripartite framework developed by L...

Functional models of the early visual system should predict responses not only to simple artificial stimuli but also to sequences of complex natural scenes. An ideal testbed for such models is the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN). Mechanisms shaping LGN responses include the linear receptive field and two fast adaptation processes, sensitive to luminance and contrast. We propose a compact funct...

The paratympanic organ, a mechanosensory hair cell-containing pouch in the amniote middle ear, was first described 100 years ago, yet its origins remain unresolved. Homology with the anamniote spiracular organ is supported by association with homologous skeletal elements and similar central targets of afferent neurons, suggesting it might be a remnant of the water-dependent lateral line system,...

The Palaeocene sediment of the Tiruchirapalli area shows presence of some elements of geniculate and non-geniculate coralline Algae. Four coralline algal species are recorded from this Formation (Thanetian age). Two of the described species belong to Sporolithon. Of the remaining two, one is assigned to Coralline, while the other one is indeterminate, being referred to the subfamily Melobesioid...

In 1907, James Ramsay Hunt (1) described a syndrome characterized by facial nerve paralysis associated with herpetic eruption of the pinna and suggested that herpes zoster oticus resulted from a geniculate ganglionitis. However, many contemporary authors agree that this condition represents a polycranial neuronitis and not simply a geniculate ganglionitis. Thus, it is a more complex disease, an...

PURPOSE In a group of humans with strabismic amblyopia, the relationship was examined between the structure and function of different brain regions. Three question were addressed: (1) Is the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) in humans with amblyopia structurally as well as functionally abnormal? (2) Do structural anomalies in the visual cortex correlate with the previously reported cortical func...

In the present electron microscopic study the effect of continuous white noise on the morphology of synapses and neuronal porosome complex (the neurotransmitter-release or secretory machinery) in two subcortical auditory brain regions colliculus inferior and medial geniculate body in cat, were investigated. Several morphological alterations in some synapses were detected in both subcortical are...

Corresponding retinal nerve fibres begin their path in the eyes and end in a single visual cortical cell. Because of this arrangement, lesions in the anterior visual pathway produce incongruent visual field defects and in the posterior pathway congruent field defects. The lateral geniculate body is on the anterior third of the visual pathway. A lesion of this nucleus produces moderately to comp...