Koniocellular cell

A koniocellular cell (konio: Greek, dust, also known as K cell) is a neuron with a small cell body that is located in the koniocellular layer of the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) in primates, including humans.

Koniocellular layers are located ventral to each parvocellular and magnocellular layer of the LGN. Even if the quantity of neurons is approximately equal to the number of magnocellular cells the koniocellular layers are much thinner due to their size. In comparison to the parvocellular and magnocellular system, fewer studies have been conducted to investigate the koniocellular system. Koniocellular cells are a heterogeneous population differing in many aspects, such as response properties and connectivity.

K cells are neurochemically and anatomically distinct from M and P cells. There are three proteins by which K cells can be clearly distinguished:

K cells differ in their size from M and P cells, they are much smaller. Unlike M and P cells, K cells are structurally similar to other thalamocortical neurons. This suggests that K cells act like other thalamocortical cells.

Since K cells are a heterogeneous group of cells, it is likely that they contain subclasses which fulfill different functions. Some cells respond to colour, some to achromatic gratings and still others are unresponsive to any types of gratings. Experimental results suggest that K cells could contribute to aspects of spatial and temporal vision, but it is unclear exactly how. Some hypotheses are:

Ventral to the magnocellular and parvocellular layers lie the koniocellular layers which differ in thickness. In macaques there are two magnocellular and four parvocellular layers and accordingly six konicellular layers. K1, the layer ventral to M1, is the largest. K2, K3 and K4 are thinner but nonetheless substantial bands of neurons. The two most dorsal layers K5 and K6 are mostly monolayers. Similar in physiology and connectivity to W cells in cat LGN, K cells form three pairs of layers in macaques.

K cells are not restricted to the koniocellular layers. They are also found in small groups, in pairs or as single cells within M and P layers. Larger subpopulations form bridges spanning the distance between two adjacent K layers.

Each koniocellular layer is innervated by the same retina part as the M or P layer dorsal to the respective K layer. Thus, the LGN contains six koniocellular layers. K1, K4 and K6 receive contralateral retinal inputs, and K3 and K5 receive ipsilateral retinal input. K2 receives input from both retinae but the input from the two eyes is relayed in separate tiers. The more dorsal tier is innervated by the ipsilateral retina and the more ventral is innervated by the contralateral retina. K cells receive input from a heterogeneous group of wide-field cells, including small bistratified cells, sparse cells and possibly also large bistratified cells and broad thorny cells. Those bistratified cells are ganglion cells that send short-wavelength signals to the LGN. Retinogeniculate axons terminating in the middle K layers display center-only blue-ON/yellow-OFF receptive fields. Sparse cells are presumed to transmit blue-OFF signals. Both, small bistratified cells and sparse cells project to K cells. Therefore, K cells are believed to relay short-wavelength visual information.

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