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Monocular enucleation prevents retinal ganglion-cell loss following neonatal visual cortex damage in cats

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 1998

KURT R. ILLIG ,
VON R. KING  and
PETER D. SPEAR
KURT R. ILLIG
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Center for Neuroscience, University of Wisconsin, Madison Present address: Department of Anatomy, University of Wisconsin Medical School, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
VON R. KING
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Center for Neuroscience, University of Wisconsin, Madison Present address: Department of Physiology, United Medical and Dental Schools, St. Thomas Campus, London SE1 7EH, UK.
PETER D. SPEAR
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Center for Neuroscience, University of Wisconsin, Madison Present address: Department of Psychology, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0275, USA.
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Abstract

Damage to primary visual cortex (VC) in young cats leads to severe retrograde degeneration of the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN) and selective transneuronal retrograde degeneration of a class of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) that have a medium-size soma. Previous studies have shown that “programmed” RGC death associated with normal development in one eye can be attenuated by removal of the other eye, suggesting that binocular interactions can influence developmental RGC death. The present study investigated whether removal of one eye also attenuates the ganglion cell loss that accompanies an early VC lesion. Five one-week-old cats received a unilateral VC lesion (areas 17, 18, and 19), and three of these cats also underwent monocular enucleation at the same time. Two normal control animals also were examined. RGC measurements were made from flat-mounted retinae when the animals were 5 weeks old. Sampling was restricted to a retinal area corresponding to the retinotopic representation included in the VC lesion. Results indicate that there is a marked loss of medium-size RGCs in the hemiretinae projecting to the damaged hemisphere in cats that received a VC lesion alone. However, there is no such loss in VC-lesion animals that also have a monocular enucleation. These results indicate that the transneuronal RGC loss that occurs after an early visual cortex lesion can be influenced by binocular interactions.

Keywords

Visual cortex damageRetinal ganglion cellX-cellVisual system developmentPlasticity
Type
Research Article
Information
Visual Neuroscience , Volume 15 , Issue 6 , November 1998 , pp. 1097 - 1105
Copyright
1998 Cambridge University Press

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