Two-photon imaging of visual responses in primate V1

描述(申请人提供)：主要目标是研究视觉皮质神经元的功能组织。这些信息对于理解神经回路如何执行辅助视觉感知的计算至关重要，它有望为治疗视觉障碍的努力提供信息。拟议的研究将集中在松鼠猴的初级视觉皮质(V1)，并将利用双光子激光扫描显微镜的本征光学成像和钙成像来解决细胞的精细组织问题。V1的大比例功能图将首先用传统的光学成像进行制作。接下来，将使用双光子技术以单细胞分辨率检测识别区域的神经元活动。这将是第一次在灵长类动物身上进行这类测量。简而言之，具体目标包括：1)研究V1中颜色选择神经元的FineScale聚集性，并了解其他反应属性，包括方向、方向和空间频率偏好，是如何相对于颜色选择性分布的；以及2)检查方向和方向选择性相对于总体方向图的微观组织，既在等向区域内，也在不连续处，如风车中心。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The principal goal is to investigate the functional organization of neurons in visual cortex. This information is critical to understanding how neural circuits perform the computations subserving visual perception, and it holds the promise of informing efforts to remediate.disorders of vision. The proposed studies will focus on primary visual cortex (V1) of squirrel monkey and will address the fine-scale organization of cells using both intrinsic optical imaging and calcium imaging with two-photon laser-scanning microscopy. Large-scale functional maps of V1 will first be made with conventional optical imaging. Next, the two-photon technique will be used to examine the activity of neurons in identified regions with single-cell resolution. These will be the first measurements of their kind in primates. Briefly, the specific aims include: 1) investigating the finescale clustering of color-selective neurons in V1, and understanding how other response properties, including orientation, direction, and spatial frequency preferences, are distributed with respect to color selectivity; and 2) examining the micro-organization of orientation and direction selectivity in relation to gross orientation maps, both within iso-orientation domains and at discontinuities such as pinwheel centers.