The Journal of Neurophysiology Vol. 79 No. 5 May 1998, pp. 2394-2407
Copyright ©1998 The American Physiological Society

Correlation Analysis of Corticotectal Interactions in the Cat Visual System

Michael Brecht, Wolf Singer, and Andreas K. Engel

Max-Planck-Institut für Hirnforschung, 60528 Frankfurt, Germany

Brecht, Michael, Wolf Singer, and Andreas K. Engel. Correlation analysis of corticotectal interactions in the cat visual system. J. Neurophysiol. 79: 2394-2407, 1998. We have studied the temporal relationship between visual responses in various visual cortical areas [17, 18, postero medial lateral suprasylvian (PMLS), postero lateral lateral suprasylvian (PLLS), 21a]) and the superficial layers of the cat superior colliculus (SC). To this end, simultaneous recordings were performed in one or several visual cortical areas and the SC of anesthetized paralyzed cats, and visually evoked multiunit responses were subjected to correlation analysis. Significant correlations occurred in 117 (24%) of 489 cortex-SC pairs and were found for all cortical areas recorded. About half of the significant correlograms showed an oscillatory modulation. In these cases, oscillation frequencies covered a broad range, the majority being in the alpha- and beta-band. On average, significant center peaks in cross-correlograms had a modulation amplitude of 0.34. Our analysis revealed a considerable intertrial variability of correlation patterns with respect to both correlation strength and oscillation frequency. Furthermore, cortical areas differed in their corticotectal correlation patterns. The percentage of cells involved a corticotectal correlation, as well as the percentage of significantly modulated correlograms in such cases, was low for areas 17 and PMLS but high for areas 18 and PLLS. Analysis of the cortical layers involved in these interactions showed that consistent temporal relationships between cortical and collicular responses were not restricted to layer V. Our data demonstrate a close relationship between corticotectal interactions and intracortical or intracollicular synchronization. Trial-by-trial analysis from these sites revealed a clear covariance of corticotectal correlations with intracortical synchronization. The probability of observing corticotectal interactions increased with enhanced local cortical and collicular synchronization and, in particular, with interareal cortical correlations. Corticotectal correlation patterns resemble in many ways those described among areas of the visual cortex. However, the correlations observed are weaker than those between nearby cortical sites, exhibit usually broader peaks and for some cortical areas show consistent phase-shifts. Corticotectal correlations represent population phenomena that reflect both the local and global temporal organization of activity in the cortical and collicular network and do not arise from purely monosynaptic interactions. Our findings show that both striate and extrastriate inputs affect the superficial SC in a cooperative manner and, thus, do not support the view that responses in the superficial SC depend exclusively on input from the primary visual areas as implied by the concept of "two corticotectal systems." We conclude that the corticotectal projections convey temporal activation patterns with high reliability, thus allowing the SC evaluation of information encoded in the temporal relations between responses of spatially disseminated cortical neurons. As a consequence, information distributed across multiple cortical areas can affect the SC neurons in a coherent way.

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