A research article by Jinwoo Kim, an undergraduate senior from the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering working in Professor Se-Bum Paik’s research group from the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, was featured on the cover page of the Journal of Neuroscience on August 19. As part of an Undergraduate Research Program (URP), the article gained a lot of attention since it is not common for undergraduate students to have their research featured on the cover page of a prominent scientific journal. Titled “Spontaneous Retinal Waves Can Generate Long-Range Horizontal Connectivity in Visual Cortex”, the research explored how long-range horizontal connections in the visual cortex form before a mammal first opens its eyes. The research team was able to determine the mechanism of this neural architecture prior to any visual learning through the use of computer simulations.
Before this research, neuroscientists had been aware that visual system neural circuits in mammals were developed prior to the first eye-opening to prepare for the processing of any visual sensory input through the eye. Such developments include cortical neurons of similar functional tuning to a visual feature linked together by long-range horizontal circuits in the primary visual cortex. However, it was already known that the formation of the long-range horizontal circuit happens before any visual sensory input via the eyes, which baffled many scientists.
The team utilized data obtained from early mammals such as baby cats, monkeys, and mice to form a computational simulation of early visual pathways. From these simulations, the team concluded that the wiring of long-range horizontal connections were initialized by spontaneous waves propagating through the retinal mosaics and by selective activation of cortical neurons with similar functional tuning. The team’s simulation was able to successfully repeat developmental mechanisms of long-range horizontal connections in mammals, ensuring their data’s reliability.
This research precisely confirms the mechanism of long-range horizontal connections in mammals and refutes the previous model arguing that random activities will induce such connections in mammals. Further, this research suggests a novel model of functional architectures in the visual cortex during early developmental periods of mammals.