J Physiol Wellcome Trust-funded researchers
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH
 QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


     


Physiology in Press

First published online on August 10, 2006.
Copyright © 2006 by The Physiological Society
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (Rapid PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
576/1/197    most recent
jphysiol.2006.115857v1
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Sun, W.
Right arrow Articles by He, S.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Sun, W.
Right arrow Articles by He, S.

Received June 23, 2006
Revised July 19, 2006
Accepted after revision August 7, 2006

ON DIRECTION-SELECTIVE GANGLION CELLS IN THE MOUSE RETINA

Wenzhi Sun1, Qiudong Deng1, William Levick2, and Shigang He1*

1 Chinese Academy of Sciences
2 Australian National University

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: shiganghe{at}moon.ibp.ac.cn.

Two types of ganglion cells (RGCs) compute motion direction in the retina: the ON-OFF direction selective ganglion cells (DSGCs) and the ON DSGCs. The ON DSGCs are much less studied mostly due to the low encounter rate. In this study, we investigated the physiology, dendritic morphology and synaptic inputs of the ON DSGCs in the mouse retina. When a visual stimulus moved back and forth in the preferred-null axis, we found that the ON DSGCs exhibited a larger EPSC when visual stimulus moved in the preferred direction and a larger IPSC in the opposite, or null direction, similar to what has been found in the ON-OFF DSGCs. This similar synaptic input pattern is in contrast to other well-known differences, namely: profile of velocity sensitivity, distribution of preferred directions, and different central projection of the axons. Immunohistochemical staining showed that the dendrites of ON DSGCs exhibited tight cofasciculation with the cholinergic plexus. These findings suggest that cholinergic amacrine cells may play an important role in generating direction selectivity in the ON DSGCs, and that the mechanism for coding motion direction is probably similar for two types of DSGCs in the retina.


Key words: Morphology • Retinal ganglion cell • Synaptic mechanisms







HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH
Copyright © 2006 The Physiological Society.