Fast-track vision | Nature Reviews Neuroscience

Access through your institution Buy or subscribe Previous clues to the existence of such a pathway came from the finding that chemical stimulation of the superior colliculus could cause

correlated bursting in midbrain dopaminergic nuclei. Also, cortical response latencies to visual stimuli are longer than those of dopaminergic neurons, making it unlikely that the responses

of these neurons are mediated by input from the visual cortex. Comoli and colleagues used anterograde tracing to investigate whether there was a direct link between the superior colliculus

and the midbrain dopaminergic nuclei. They injected tracers into the superior colliculus and found that they were transported specifically to the dopaminergic part of the substantia nigra

and to the ventral tegmental area. Electron microscopy confirmed that the labelled fibres formed synapses, apparently onto both dopaminergic and non-dopaminergic neurons in these regions.

Interestingly, the synapses were both symmetric (probably excitatory) and asymmetric (probably inhibitory), and these two populations of synapses might arise from different groups of neurons

in the superior colliculus. This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution ACCESS OPTIONS Access through your institution Subscribe to this journal Receive 12 print

issues and online access $189.00 per year only $15.75 per issue Learn more Buy this article * Purchase on SpringerLink * Instant access to full article PDF Buy now Prices may be subject to

local taxes which are calculated during checkout ADDITIONAL ACCESS OPTIONS: * Log in * Learn about institutional subscriptions * Read our FAQs * Contact customer support ORIGINAL RESEARCH

PAPER * Comoli, E. et al. A direct projection from superior colliculus to substantia nigra for detecting salient visual events. _Nature Neurosci._ 6, 974–980 (2003) Article  CAS  Google

Scholar  Download references Authors * Rachel Jones View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT

THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Jones, R. Fast-track vision. _Nat Rev Neurosci_ 4, 779 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1238 Download citation * Issue Date: 01 October 2003 * DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1238 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: Get shareable link Sorry, a shareable link is not currently

available for this article. Copy to clipboard Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative