ABOVE: Information from both eyes reaches the visual thalamus in defined areas. Nerve fibers shown in green come from the eye located on the same side as the thalamus shown, while nerve fibers in red come from the opposite eye.
© MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE OF NEUROBIOLOGY / FERNHOLZ
The paper
J. Bauer et al., “Limited functional convergence of eye-specific inputs in the retinogeniculate pathway of the mouse,” Neuron, 109:2457–68.e12, 2021.
Mice have binocular vision, but unlike in humans, the visual fields of their side-facing eyes have little overlap. Scientists once speculated that most neurons likely received input from only one retina, but recent research has shown that a surprising number of neurons in the visual thalamus connect to both eyes. “This is a bit of a joke in the field,” says Tobias Rose of the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Germany. “The mouse is very sloppy in its wiring; it just ...
