Binocular interaction in the cat's superior colliculus

Abstract

1. Binocularly driven neurones with small receptive fields near the area centralis were recorded in the cat's superior colliculus. 2. Binocular interaction was tested by stimulating both eyes simultaneously with a single moving stimulus at various retinal disparities. 3. Collicular cells in general showed strong summation or even facilitation when the images of the stimulus were in exact correspondence on the receptive fields, sometimes with occlusion when they were out of register. The range of retinal disparity over which there was additive interaction could be as little as 1 or 2 deg, almost as narrow as for the most precisely tuned neurones in the visual cortex. Even cells with large receptive fields sometimes showed a narrow range of binocular interaction. 4. Non-directional cells generally exhibited weaker summation and broader disparity selectivity than did direction-selective cells. 5. Some neurones with virtually no response to a stimulus in one of the eyes can exhibit marked binocular interaction. Other apparently monocular cells show little or no binocular interaction. 6. The disparity of the centres of the receptive fields was measured after correcting for small eye movements, which were assessed by two different techniques. For 132 cells the measured distribution of horizontal disparity (range 4.5 deg; S.D. 0.93 deg) was significantly broader than that of vertical disparity (range 2.2 deg; S.D. 0.52 deg). Sources of error in these measurements are considered. 7. The results are discussed in relation to the known connexions between visual cortex and superior colliculus and the possible role of the latter in the regulation of eye movements.