Population Receptive Field Estimation Reveals New Retinotopic Maps in Human Subcortex

The human subcortex contains multiple nuclei that govern the transmission of information to and among cortical areas. In the visual domain, these nuclei are organized into retinotopic maps. Because of their small size, these maps have been difficult to precisely measure using phase-encoded functiona...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of neuroscience 2015-07, Vol.35 (27), p.9836-9847
Main Authors: DeSimone, Kevin, Viviano, Joseph D, Schneider, Keith A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Brain - blood supply
Brain - physiology
Brain Mapping
Computer Simulation
Female
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Oxygen - blood
Photic Stimulation
Pulvinar - blood supply
Pulvinar - physiology
Reproducibility of Results
Retina - physiology
Visual Fields - physiology
Visual Pathways - blood supply
Visual Pathways - physiology
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Summary:The human subcortex contains multiple nuclei that govern the transmission of information to and among cortical areas. In the visual domain, these nuclei are organized into retinotopic maps. Because of their small size, these maps have been difficult to precisely measure using phase-encoded functional magnetic resonance imaging, particularly in the eccentricity dimension. Using instead the population receptive field model to estimate the response properties of individual voxels, we were able to resolve two previously unreported retinotopic maps in the thalamic reticular nucleus and the substantia nigra. We measured both the polar angle and eccentricity components, receptive field size and hemodynamic response function delay, in the these nuclei and in the lateral geniculate nucleus, the superior colliculus, and the lateral and intergeniculate pulvinars. The anatomical boundaries of these nuclei were delineated using multiple averaged proton density-weighted images and were used to constrain and confirm the functional activations. Deriving the retinotopic organization of these small, subcortical nuclei is the first step in exploring their response properties and their roles in neural dynamics.
ISSN:0270-6474
1529-2401
DOI:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3840-14.2015