L-/M-cone opponency in visual evoked potentials of human cortex

Journal of vision

Jan Kremers¹  Einat Hauzman¹  Cristiane Maria Gomes Martins¹  Mirella Telles Salgueiro Barboni¹  Avinash Aher¹  Daniela Maria Oliveria Bonci²  Balázs Vince Nagy³  Tina I. Tsai⁴  Dora Fix Ventura⁴ 

[1] Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil;Department of Mechatronics, Optics and Engineering Informatics, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary;Department of Ophthalmology, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary;Instituto Israelita de Ensino e Pesquisa Albert Einstein, Sao Paulo, Brazil

关键词: retinal cone;    evoked potentials, visual;   

DOI  :  10.1167/17.9.20

学科分类：眼科学

来源: Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology

【 摘 要 】

L and M cones send their signals to the cortex using two chromatic (parvocellular and blue–yellow koniocellular) and one luminance (magnocellular) pathways. These pathways contain ON and OFF subpathways that respond to excitation increments and decrements respectively. Here, we report on visually evoked potentials (VEP) recordings that reflect L- and M-cone driven increment (LI and MI) and decrement (LD and MD) activity. VEP recordings were performed on 12 trichromats and four dichromats (two protanopes and two deuteranopes). We found that the responses to LI strongly resembled those to MD, and that LD and MI responses were very similar. Moreover, the lack of a photoreceptor type (L or M) in the dichromats led to a dominance of the ON pathway of the remaining photoreceptor type. These results provide electrophysiological evidence that antagonistic L/M signal processing, already present in the retina and the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN), is also observed at the visual cortex. These data are in agreement with results from human psychophysics where MI stimuli lead to a perceived brightness decrease whereas LI stimuli resulted in perceived brightness increases. VEP recording is a noninvasive tool that can be easily and painlessly applied. We propose that the technique may provide information in the diagnosis of color vision deficiencies.

【 授权许可】

CC BY