Effects of frontal eye field stimulation upon activities of the lateral geniculate body of the cat

Abstract

Summary Effects of electrical stimulation of the frontal eye field (FEF) upon activities of the lateral geniculate body (LG) were studied in encéphale isolé cats. In some experiments the effects were examined by recording field responses of the dorsal nucleus of LG (LGd) and the visual cortex (VC) to electrical stimulation of the optic chiasm (OX). Conditioning repetitive stimulation of FEF exerted no significant effects on the r₁ wave of LGd responses but had a facilitatory effect on the r₂ wave. FEF-induced facilitation of VC responses was prominent in the late postsynaptic components. These effects had latencies of 50–100 msec and durations of 200–500 msec. Transection of the midbrain showed that most of the FEF-effect was not mediated via the brainstem reticular formation. Extracellular unitary recordings were made from 125 neurons, of which 91 were LGd neurons, 23 neurons of the caudal part of the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRc) and 11 neurons of the ventral nucleus of LG (LGv). In 30 of 87 LGd relay neurons FEF stimuli increased response probabilities to OX stimuli and their spontaneous discharges. These FEF-facilitated LGd neurons were distinguished from the non-affected ones in that the former had longer OX-latencies than the latter. The FEF-facilitated neurons probably correspond to “X” neurons of LGd. In 17 TRc neurons the effects were inhibitory. Their time courses were similar to those of the facilitation in the LGd relay neurons. Seven LGv neurons received facilitatory effects from FEF. Among them 5 neurons showed short-latency (6.7–17 msec) responses to FEF single shocks. The FEF sites inducing conjugate lateral eye movements exerted stronger facilitatory effects than those inducing upward or centering eye movements did. It is suggested that the effects may subserve to cancel the inhibitory convergence onto X-cells just after saccadic eye movements so as to improve visual information transmission through LGd during the eye fixation.