The Organization of Connections between Areas V5 and V1 in Macaque Monkey Visual Cortex

Abstract

Area V5 or MT of primate extrastriate visual cortex is specialized for involvement in the analysis of motion and receives input from two layers, 4B and 6, of the striate cortex or V1. Injections of horseradish peroxidase - wheatgerm agglutinin into V5 reveal a patchy distribution of labelled cells and axonal terminals in layer 4B, suggesting the presence of a segregated and functionally specialized subsystem within the layer. The patches are similar in size and frequency to the cytochrome oxidase blobs of layers 2 and 3, but bear little systematic relationship to them. V5-efferent cells in layer 6, however, tend to avoid the cores of the blobs. The back projection from V5 is continuously distributed in layers 6 and 1, though it is absent inside representations of the central 10° in the latter; it is also diffusely distributed between the patches in layer 4B and over a territory wider than that occupied by labelled cells. It is thus inferred that the back projection probably influences (a) V5-efferent cells other than those projecting to the injected site in V5, and (b) cells projecting to locations other than V5. There are no major changes in the cortical frequency of V5-efferent cells with eccentricity in the visual field representation. The V5-efferent cells of layer 6 are tenfold less frequent than those of layer 4B and as a population may therefore be involved with only a limited sector of directions of movement. Furthermore, their topographic distribution does not always coincide exactly with that of the layer 4B population, as if a site in V5 receives information about slightly non-corresponding regions of the visual field from the two layers.