7 Retinal-Ganglion-Cells
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Functions of the retina Retina performs five important jobs: 1. transduction 2. wavelength encoding 3. light/dark adaptation & chromatic adaptation 4. spatial filtering 5. data compression Neural Pigmented cell circuitry in Rod the retina Cone Horizontal cell Amacrine cell Bipolar cell Ganglion cell Neural circuits: rod pathway Neural circuits in the retina (monkey rod pathway) Rod bipolar AII amacrines Parallel pathways (processing streams) 1. Anatomically distinct 2. Physiologically/functionally distinct 3. Complete coverage 4. Recombine Example: rods and cones Some retinal ganglion cell types midget small bistratified parasol Parallel pathways: ganglion cells Parasol ganglion cell: Midget ganglion cell: 1. Inputs from many 1. Inputs from few (or photoreceptors one) photoreceptors 2. Fast/transient 2. Slow/sustained responses responses 3. Poor spatial resolution 3. High spatial resolution 4. Combine all cones (“color blind”) Ganglion cell receptive fields & inputs from cone lattice Field et al., Nature (2010) Ganglion cell mosaics Field et al., Nature (2010) Retinal ganglion cell responses on-center RGC off-center RGC stimulus: on off stimulus: on off Retinal ganglion cell measurements (Kuffler 1950s) Receptive fields: center-surround organization Receptive Fields - - - + - + + + - - + - + - + + + - - + - + + - + - + - - + - - + + - - - + + + On-center, Off-surround Off-center, On-surround Center-surround circuitry in the retina On-off layer segregation Linearity of RGC responses Linearity of RGC responses Linear receptive field model Photoreceptors Bipolar cells + - - Ganglion cell Linear receptive field model Neural image Neural image Input image “Neural image” (cornea) (retinal ganglion cells) Center-surround receptive fields: emphasize edges. ‘On’ and “off” responses Stimulus Receptive field x t Functions of the retina Retina performs five important jobs: 1. transduction 2. wavelength encoding 3. light/dark adaptation & chromatic adaptation 4. spatial filtering 5. data compression Retinal inhomogeneity Simulations of the high spatial resolution in central vision coupled with the blurry low spatial resolution in the periphery. Distribution of rods and cones Foveal cone mosaic Near periphery photoreceptor mosaic rods cones Dendritic fields increase with eccentricity (Dacey, 1993; human) Parasol Small bistratified Midget Dendritic field diameter (microns) Retinal eccentricity (mm) Diseases of the retina macular degeneration retinitis pigmentosa Retinal implants.