Birds multiplex spectral and temporal visual information via retinal On- and Off-channels.

ABSTRACT: In vertebrate vision, early retinal circuits divide incoming visual information into functionally opposite elementary signals: On and Off, transient and sustained, chromatic and achromatic. Together these signals can yield an efficient representation of the scene for transmission to the brain via the optic nerve. However, this long-standing interpretation of retinal function is based on mammals, and it is unclear whether this functional arrangement is common to all vertebrates. Here we show that male poultry chicks use a fundamentally different strategy to communicate information from the eye to the brain. Rather than using functionally opposite pairs of retinal output channels, chicks encode the polarity, timing, and spectral composition of visual stimuli in a highly correlated manner: fa

SUBMITTER: Seifert M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10471707 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature