Neural substrata underlying tectal eye movement codification in goldfish

Abstract

The optic tectum encodes orienting eye saccades in a spatially ordered map. To investigate whether the functional properties of each tectal site are related to a particular pattern of connectivity with downward structures in the brainstem, two sets of experiments were carried out. First, biotinylated dextran amine (BDA) was injected at different tectal sites along the anteroposterior axis. Electrical stimulation at these sites evoked saccades whose horizontal component amplitudes increased with the distance to the rostral pole. In the second experiment, BDA and fluoro-ruby (FR) were injected at different tectal sites along the mediolateral axis. Electrical stimulation here evoked saccades with different upward and downward directions, but similar horizontal component amplitudes. A major finding of the first experiment was that a topographic link of the tectum exists with the mesencephalic reticular formation, but that such a connection was absent or very attenuated for the rhombencephalic reticular formation. In the second set of experiments, the clusters of BDA and FR boutons left by the mediolateral tectal sites were separated in the rostral mesencephalon, at the level of the nucleus of the medial longitudinal fasciculus, but overlapped in the caudal mesencephalon and rhombencephalon. These data provide evidence that decodification of tectal motor commands is based, at least in part, on the connectivity of each tectal locus on downward structures with the brainstem.