neuroscience Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions, and its disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, ...

, parvocellular cells, also called P-cells, are

neuron A neuron (American English), neurone (British English), or nerve cell, is an membrane potential#Cell excitability, excitable cell (biology), cell that fires electric signals called action potentials across a neural network (biology), neural net ...

s located within the parvocellular layers of the

lateral geniculate nucleus In neuroanatomy, the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN; also called the lateral geniculate body or lateral geniculate complex) is a structure in the thalamus and a key component of the mammalian visual pathway. It is a small, ovoid, Anatomical ter ...

(LGN) of the

thalamus The thalamus (: thalami; from Greek language, Greek Wikt:θάλαμος, θάλαμος, "chamber") is a large mass of gray matter on the lateral wall of the third ventricle forming the wikt:dorsal, dorsal part of the diencephalon (a division of ...

. Their name comes , due to the small size of the cell compared to the larger

magnocellular cell Magnocellular cells, also called M-cells, are neurons located within the magnocellular layer of the lateral geniculate nucleus of the thalamus. The cells are part of the visual system. They are termed "magnocellular" since they are characteriz ...

s. Phylogenetically, parvocellular neurons are more modern than magnocellular ones.

Function

The parvocellular neurons of the

visual system The visual system is the physiological basis of visual perception (the ability to perception, detect and process light). The system detects, phototransduction, transduces and interprets information concerning light within the visible range to ...

receive their input from midget cells, a type of retinal ganglion cell, whose axons comprise the optic tract. These synapses occur in one of the four dorsal parvocellular layers of the lateral geniculate nucleus. The information from each eye is kept separate at this point, and continues to be segregated until processing in the

visual cortex The visual cortex of the brain is the area of the cerebral cortex that processes visual information. It is located in the occipital lobe. Sensory input originating from the eyes travels through the lateral geniculate nucleus in the thalam ...

. The electrically-encoded visual information leaves the parvocellular cells via relay cells in the optic radiations, traveling to the

primary visual cortex The visual cortex of the brain is the area of the cerebral cortex that processes visual information. It is located in the occipital lobe. Sensory input originating from the eyes travels through the lateral geniculate nucleus in the thalamus ...

layer 4C-β. The parvocellular neurons are sensitive to colour, and are more capable of discriminating fine details than their magnocellular counterparts. Parvocellular cells have greater spatial resolution, but lower temporal resolution, than the magnocellular cells.

References

External links

NIF Search - Parvocellular Cell
via the Neuroscience Information Framework {{Visual pathways Visual system Thalamus

Function

See also

References

External links