ReviewVisual neuroscience2011
What the bird's brain tells the bird's eye: the function of descending input to the avian retina.
Review in Visual neuroscience, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 46 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pathological evidence of neurotropism and oculotropism in wild black-headed gulls naturally infected with H5N1 high pathogenicity avian influenza.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Saltatory axonal conduction in the avian retina.The Journal of physiology · 2025Article
- The central histaminergic system slows visual processing in the retina and lateral geniculate nucleus of awake mice.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Abiotic stressors in poultry production: A comprehensive review.Journal of animal physiology and animal nutrition · 2025Review
- Influence of light supplement on duck sternal calcification from integrated analysis of metabolome and transcriptome.Poultry science · 2022Article
- Arousal Modulates Retinal Output.Neuron · 2020Article
- The effect of unilateral disruption of the centrifugal visual system on normal eye development in chicks raised under constant light conditions.Brain structure & function · 2017Article
- Retinal cross talk in the mammalian visual system.Journal of neurophysiology · 2016Article
- Integrating brain, behavior, and phylogeny to understand the evolution of sensory systems in birds.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2015Review
- Article
- Review
- Functional implications of species differences in the size and morphology of the isthmo optic nucleus (ION) in birds.PloS one · 2012Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
As Cajal discovered in the late 19th century, the bird retina receives a substantial input from the brain. Approximately 10,000 fibers originating in a small midbrain nucleus, the isthmo-optic nucleus (ION), terminate in each retina. The input to the ION is chiefly from the optic tectum which, in the bird, is the primary recipient of retinal input. These neural elements constitute a closed loop, the centrifugal visual system (CVS), beginning and ending in the retina, that delivers positive feedback to active ganglion cells. Several features of the system are puzzling. All fibers from the ION terminate in the ventral retina and an unusual axon-bearing amacrine cell, the target cell, is the postsynaptic partner of these fibers. While the rest of the CVS is orderly and retinotopic, target cell axons project seemingly at random, mostly to distant parts of the retina. We review here the most significant features of the anatomy and physiology of the CVS with a view to understanding its function. We suggest that many of the facts about this system, including some that are otherwise difficult to explain, can be accommodated within the hypothesis that the images of shadows cast on the ground or on objects in the environment, initiate a rapid and parallel search of the sky for a possible aerial predator. If a predator is located, shadow and predator would be temporarily linked together and tracked by the CVS.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.