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Shadows Cast by Retinal Blood Vessels Mapped in Primary Visual Cortex
Daniel L. Adams,*Jonathan C. Horton
The mammalian eye is a remarkable optical device,
but its design is not perfect. The blood vessels that supply the inner
retinaare located in front of the photoreceptor layer, blocking accessto light. Their shadows create a pattern of blindness in the fieldof
vision that corresponds precisely to the location of the largestvessels in the eye. We show here that in squirrel monkeys, focaldeprivation by blood vessels leads to rewiring of the eye's
geniculocorticalprojections, imprinting an image of the retinal
vascular treeonto the primary visual cortex. This process illustrates
vividlythat local imbalances in neuronal activity can influence columnformation during normal development.
Beckman Vision Center, University of California, San Francisco,
San Francisco, CA 94143-0730, USA.
*
To whom correspondence should be addressed at Beckman Vision
Center, University of California, San Francisco, 10 Kirkham Street,San
Francisco, CA 94143-0730, USA. E-mail: dadams{at}itsa.ucsf.edu
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In Science Magazine
LETTERS
W. R. Levick;, Daniel L. Adams, and Jonathan C. Horton (28 March 2003) Science299 (5615), 1983.
[DOI: 10.1126/science.299.5615.1983] |Full Text »|PDF »
THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Ocular Dominance Columns: Enigmas and Challenges.
D. L. Adams and J. C. Horton (2009)
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