V.S. Weiner and P.H. Schiller, 2006
Soc Neurosci. Abstr., 801.13.
Abstract
Previous work has established that the parasol retinal ganglion cells in the
primate retina receive convergent input from the red, green and blue cones,
have dendritic arbors and receptive fields three times those of midget cells,
and are not capable of processing information at high spatial frequencies (Schiller
& Logothetis, TINS, 1990, 13, 292-398). Research has also shown that the
midget and koniocellular cells of the retina break down color information along
two major axes, the red/green and the blue/yellow (Derrington, Krauskopf &
Lennie, J. Physiol, 1984, 357, 241-265).
We have developed a random-dot display that can provide disparity and motion
parallax cues separately or in combination and can, in addition, be set up to
not activate the parasol system and to selectively drive the red/green or the
blue yellow channels that originate in the retina. Using this system with rhesus
monkeys as subjects, we were able to determine the role the midget, parasol
and koniocellular systems play in stereopsis and in motion parallax.
The parasol system was rendered unresponsive by using high spatial frequency
isoluminant random dot displays. When this was done, performance of the animals
was greatly attenuated on the motion parallax task but was unaffected on the
disparity task. These findings suggests that in monkeys the parasol system plays
a central role in the processing of motion parallax information.
The red/green and blue/yellow axes in our experiments were selectively activated
by presenting cone isolating stimulus displays at isoluminance. When this was
done, performance of the monkeys on the disparity task remained outstanding
with red/green isoluminant displays, but became significantly impaired using
isolumiant blue/yellow stimuli of comparable color contrast. These findings
suggest that the red/green midget cells of the retina play a central role in
processing stereopsis and that the blue/yellow midget and koniocellular cells
play a minor role in this process.
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Citation: V.S. Weiner and P.H. Schiller What role do the parallel chanels of the retina play in the processing of stereopsis and motion parallax? Program No. 801.13. 2006 Neuroscience Meeting Planner. Atlanta, GA: Society for Neuroscience, 2006. Online.