Surgically created neural pathways mediate visual pattern discrimination.

Combined lesions of retinal targets and ascending auditory pathways can induce, in developing animals, permanent retinal projections to auditory thalamic nuclei and to visual thalamic nuclei that normally receive little direct retinal input. Neurons in the auditory cortex of such animals have visual response properties that resemble those of neurons in the primary visual cortex of normal animals. Therefore, we investigated the behavioral function of the surgically induced retino-thalamo-cortical pathways. We showed that both surgically induced pathways can mediate visually guided behaviors whose normal substrate, the pathway from the retina to the primary visual cortex via the primary thalamic visual nucleus, is missing.

[1]  G. Schneider.  Two visual systems. , 1969, Science.

[2]  G. Schneider.  Early lesions of superior colliculus: factors affecting the formation of abnormal retinal projections. , 1973, Brain, behavior and evolution.

[3]  V. Caviness.  Architectonic map of neocortex of the normal mouse , 1975, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[4]  Schneider Ge,et al.  Two visuomotor systems in the Syrian hamster. , 1975 .

[5]  G. Schneider,et al.  Abnormal synaptic connections of the optic tract in the thalamus after midbrain lesions in newborn hamsters , 1975, Brain Research.

[6]  C. Blakemore,et al.  Functional organization in the visual cortex of the golden hamster , 1976, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[7]  R. M. Cooper,et al.  Effects of pretectal lesions on rats wearing light-diffusing occluders , 1976, Brain Research.

[8]  M. Mesulam,et al.  Tetramethyl benzidine for horseradish peroxidase neurohistochemistry: a non-carcinogenic blue reaction product with superior sensitivity for visualizing neural afferents and efferents. , 1978, The journal of histochemistry and cytochemistry : official journal of the Histochemistry Society.

[9]  W. C. Hall,et al.  The organization of the lateral posterior nucleus of the golden hamster after neonatal superior colliculus lesions , 1980, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[10]  W. C. Hall,et al.  The normal organization of the lateral posterior nucleus of the golden hamster , 1980, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[11]  D. Frost,et al.  Tangential organization of thalamic projections to the neocortex in the mouse , 1980, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[12]  D O Frost,et al.  Orderly anomalous retinal projections to the medial geniculate, ventrobasal, and lateral posterior nuclei of the hamster , 1981, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[13]  D. Frost,et al.  Induction of functional retinal projections to the somatosensory system , 1985, Nature.

[14]  V. Casagrande,et al.  Advances in neural and behavioral development , 1985 .

[15]  M. Sur,et al.  Experimentally induced visual projections into auditory thalamus and cortex. , 1988, Science.

[16]  D. Frost,et al.  Synaptic organization of anomalous retinal projections to the somatosensory and auditory thalamus: Target‐controlled morphogenesis of axon terminals and synaptic glomeruli , 1988, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[17]  D. Frost,et al.  Visual responses of neurons in somatosensory cortex of hamsters with experimentally induced retinal projections to somatosensory thalamus. , 1989, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[18]  J. Rauschecker.  Compensatory plasticity and sensory substitution in the cerebral cortex , 1995, Trends in Neurosciences.

[19]  D. Frost,et al.  Retinal ganglion cells in normal hamsters and hamsters with novel retinal projections. I. Number, distribution, and size , 1995, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[20]  M. Sur,et al.  Anterograde axonal tracing with the subunit B of cholera toxin: a highly sensitive immunohistochemical protocol for revealing fine axonal morphology in adult and neonatal brains , 1996, Journal of Neuroscience Methods.

[21]  M. Hallett,et al.  Functional relevance of cross-modal plasticity in blind humans , 1997, Nature.

[22]  M. Hallett,et al.  Neural networks for Braille reading by the blind. , 1998 .

[23]  D Bavelier,et al.  Cerebral organization for language in deaf and hearing subjects: biological constraints and effects of experience. , 1998, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[24]  M. Sur,et al.  Visual behaviour mediated by retinal projections directed to the auditory pathway , 2000, Nature.