下記の予定で部門セミナーを開催します。
マカクやマーモセットの視覚研究で有名なPaul R. Martin先生が来訪されることになりセミナーをお願いしました。多数ご来聴下さい。

The seminar concerns the parallel organisation of visual pathway in primates. The main thalamic target of retinal ganglion cell axons is the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN). In primates the ganglion cell axons are segregated into target LGN layers called parvocellular, magnocellular and koniocellular. It was once thought that signals for color vision travel exclusively on the parvocellular pathway, but experiments from our and other laboratories showed that many koniocellular cells in marmoset monkeys show "blue-yellow" color sensitivity. I will summarise these experiments, then show how we used color selectivity as a doorway through which other functional properties of koniocellular pathways in marmosets could be explored. We found koniocellular cells interact with brain circuits regulating attention and alertness, and that some koniocellular cells show properties (orientation sensitivity, binocular integration) previously thought first elaborated at the primary visual cortex. The broad hypothesis arising from the results is that koniocellular pathways could support some low-acuity visual functions independent of the "textbook"
feed-forward pathways to primary visual cortex.