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Friedrich Miescher Labor der Max Planck Gesellschaft, Spemannstrasse 37, D-7400 Tübingen, W. Germany

1. Several methods for evaluating light-evoked response latency and its variability in brisk-sustained (X) and brisk-transient (Y) retinal ganglion cells were tested. The most accurate procedure proved to be that described by Levick (1973), in which the time of the occurrence of the fourth impulse after stimulus onset is taken as an estimate of the latency.

2. The shortest response latencies are obtained when the stimuli are the same size as the receptive field centre. At medium and high response amplitudes (> 150 impulses/sec) the response of brisk-transient (Y) cells to these optimal stimuli is 10-15 msec faster than that of adjacent brisk-sustained (X) cells.

3. The response latency of brisk-sustained (X) cells for stimuli larger than the receptive field centre increases, whereas that of brisk-transient (Y) cells remains constant. Brisk-sustained (X) cells respond faster than do brisk-transient (Y) cells to stimuli smaller than the receptive field centre.

4. No systematic difference exists between brisk-sustained (X) and brisk-transient (Y) cells in regard to the temporal variability of the response. The standard deviation of the latency for stimuli of optimal size decreases from 2·0-8·0 msec at medium stimulus contrast to 0·6-2·0 msec at high stimulus contrast.

5. The response of OFF-centre cells to the disappearance of a light spot is always slower than that of an ON-centre cell of the same class to the onset of this stimulus. However, when OFF-centre cells are stimulated with dark spots, their response latency does not differ from that of ON-centre cells of the same class.

6. No simple relationship exists between the response latency and the response amplitude. At medium and high discharge rates, most brisk-transient (Y) cells respond faster than an adjacent brisk-sustained (X) cell with equal response. At the same response amplitude, the latencies become shorter as the background illumination is raised. The same discharge rate can be obtained with stimuli of sub-optimal and supra-optimal size, but the latency for the larger stimulus is shorter than that for the smaller one. Latency, therefore, is an additional parameter characterizing the light-evoked response.

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