Spatial organization of normal and visually deprived units in the lateral geniculate nucleus of the cat

Abstract The spatial organization of the receptive fields of lateral geniculate neurons of cats was examined by single unit techniques. The stimulus consisted of spots of various sizes centered on the receptive field center. Of the 62 units examined, 24 received input from the normal eye and 38 from the visually deprived eye. The visually deprived units had small receptive field centers and antagonistic center-surround organization. Examination of peristimulus time histograms showed that approximately 50 per cent of the units fed by the visually deprived eye had firing patterns consistently different from the units innervated by the normal eye. These units had symmetrical firing patterns which did not change with increasing stimulus diameters, low maximum firing rate and long latency. Calculation of the summation of inhibition in the peripheral portion of the receptive field showed that these units had stronger inhibition than the normal units.