Do direction and orientation preferences form maps in the mouse superior colliculus (SC)? We examined how motion and orientation tuning are organized in SC neurons and their retinal inputs—and how the retinal topography is transformed by collicular circuits. tinyurl.com/mr2zt5rm 🧵👇

From the retina, SC inherits a highly ordered topography of cardinal directions and orientations previously described for direction- and orientation-selective ganglion cells. With increasing depth, SC neurons progressively deviate from this organization.

Retinal boutons and SC neurons show weak local clustering and no robust global maps of direction or orientation. Nearby boutons and neurons often prefer very different directions or orientations, with clustering limited to extremely small spatial scales.

Together, our results show that mouse SC transforms a retinal topographic organization into a broader mix of tuning preferences at each visual location—supporting diverse visually guided behaviors.