The course of axons of retinal ganglion cells within the optic nerve and tract of the chick (Gallus gallus).

Small laser lesions placed in the posthatch chicken retina resulted in axotomy and then death of all ganglion cells located in a sector peripheral to the primary damage. With the use of silver techniques, the patterns of degenerating retinal fibers in the optic nerve, chiasm, and optic tract were examined. In the proximal part of the optic nerve, radial retinal lesions resulted in a sheet of degenerating axons along the rostrocaudal extent of the nerve. The position of degenerating axons was related to the site of their entry in the optic nerve head with an overlapping distribution of degenerating fibers entering the optic nerve head from equivalent points from the temporal and nasal sides. In the optic chiasm, the distribution of fibers was similar to that seen in the proximal part of the optic nerve. In the optic tract there was a similar mixing of fibers from opposite sides of the retina. The ventral, nasal and temporal retinal fibers lay in the superficial part of the tract whereas the fibers from the nasal and temporal dorsal retina ran in the deeper, medial aspect of the tract. The central-to-peripheral axes of the retina were mapped along the rostrocaudal axis of the tract. As the tract approached the tectum degenerating fibers from single retinal lesions did not always remain together. In the case of a lesion in the ventral nasal retina, degenerating fibers split into two bundles located at opposite ends of the tract only to reunite at their terminal regional at the caudal pole of the tectum.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)