Response to rates of luminance change of sustained and transient cells in the cat lateral geniculate nucleus and optic tract.

We recorded the response of sustained (X) and transient (Y) cells in the cat lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) and optic tract to a stationary spot while the spot luminance was increased and decreased with a constant rate (linear luminance functions), or modulated sinusoidally. The spot filled the receptive field center, and was surrounded by an annulus of fixed luminance. The LGN X cells seemed to perform a differentiation-like operation in the time domain at slow temporal modulations, giving information about rate of luminance change. To the linear luminance functions the cells responded with a constant firing rate. The on-center cells were activated during increasing luminance, the off-center cells during decreasing luminance. This firing rate increased monotonically with rate of luminance change. To low-frequency sinusoidal modulations the cells had a marked negative phase shift. The response of the LGN Y cells had a transient component shortly after the luminance started to increase (on-center cells) or decrease (off-center cells), followed by a secondary, gradually changing component. The peak of the transient component occurred on average when the response of the X cells increased most rapidly. To low-frequency sinusoidal modulation the average negative phase shift of this peak was twice the average of the X cells. The Y system could accordingly provide information about rate of change in the response of the X system. In the optic tract the X fiber response resembled the LGN X cell response in most respects. The Y fibers had only a weak transient response component, so this component was accentuated in the thalamic relay. Also the sensitivity for rate of luminance change was increased in LGN.