Spatial scale and cellular substrate of contrast adaptation by retinal ganglion cells

10.1038/82888 ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Solange P. Brown ◽  
Richard H. Masland
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Scale ◽  
Retinal Ganglion Cells ◽  
Ganglion Cells ◽  
Retinal Ganglion ◽  
Contrast Adaptation

Excitatory and inhibitory contributions to receptive fields of alpha-like retinal ganglion cells in mouse

2013 ◽  
Vol 110 (6) ◽  
pp. 1426-1440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Di Marco ◽  
Dario A. Protti ◽  
Samuel G. Solomon
Keyword(s):  
Retinal Ganglion Cells ◽  
Ganglion Cells ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Retinal Ganglion ◽  
Spatial Profile ◽  
Contrast Adaptation ◽  
Visual Areas ◽  
On And Off Pathways ◽  
Higher Visual Areas ◽  
Operational Range

The ON and OFF pathways that emerge at the first synapse in the retina are generally thought to be streamed in parallel to higher visual areas, but recent work shows cross talk at the level of retinal ganglion cells. The ON pathway drives inhibitory inputs onto some OFF ganglion cells, such that these neurons show “push-pull” convergence of OFF-excitation and ON-disinhibition. In this study we measure the spatial receptive field of excitatory and inhibitory inputs to OFF-sustained (OFF-S) retinal ganglion cells of mouse, establish how contrast adaptation modulates excitatory and inhibitory synaptic inputs, and show the pharmacology of the inhibitory inputs. We find that the spatial tuning properties of excitatory and inhibitory inputs are sufficient to determine the spatial profile of the spike output and that high spatial acuity may be particularly reliant on disinhibitory circuits. Contrast adaptation reduced excitation to OFF-S ganglion cells, as expected, and also unmasked an asymmetry in inhibitory inputs: disinhibition at light-off was immune to contrast adaptation, but inhibition at light-on was substantially reduced. In pharmacological experiments we confirm that inhibitory inputs are partly mediated by glycine, but our measurements also suggest a substantial role for GABA. Our observations therefore reveal functional diversity in the inhibitory inputs to OFF ganglion cells and suggest that in addition to enhancing operational range these inputs help shape the spatial receptive fields of ganglion cells.

scholarly journals Diversity in spatial scope of contrast adaptation among mouse retinal ganglion cells

2017 ◽  
Vol 118 (6) ◽  
pp. 3024-3043 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Hossein Khani ◽  
Tim Gollisch
Keyword(s):  
Receptive Field ◽  
Ganglion Cell ◽  
Retinal Ganglion Cells ◽  
Functional Diversity ◽  
Ganglion Cells ◽  
Cell Types ◽  
Retinal Ganglion ◽  
Contrast Level ◽  
Contrast Adaptation ◽  
Average Contrast

Retinal ganglion cells adapt to changes in visual contrast by adjusting their response kinetics and sensitivity. While much work has focused on the time scales of these adaptation processes, less is known about the spatial scale of contrast adaptation. For example, do small, localized contrast changes affect a cell’s signal processing across its entire receptive field? Previous investigations have provided conflicting evidence, suggesting that contrast adaptation occurs either locally within subregions of a ganglion cell’s receptive field or globally over the receptive field in its entirety. Here, we investigated the spatial extent of contrast adaptation in ganglion cells of the isolated mouse retina through multielectrode-array recordings. We applied visual stimuli so that ganglion cell receptive fields contained regions where the average contrast level changed periodically as well as regions with constant average contrast level. This allowed us to analyze temporal stimulus integration and sensitivity separately for stimulus regions with and without contrast changes. We found that the spatial scope of contrast adaptation depends strongly on cell identity, with some ganglion cells displaying clear local adaptation, whereas others, in particular large transient ganglion cells, adapted globally to contrast changes. Thus, the spatial scope of contrast adaptation in mouse retinal ganglion cells appears to be cell-type specific. This could reflect differences in mechanisms of contrast adaptation and may contribute to the functional diversity of different ganglion cell types. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Understanding whether adaptation of a neuron in a sensory system can occur locally inside the receptive field or whether it always globally affects the entire receptive field is important for understanding how the neuron processes complex sensory stimuli. For mouse retinal ganglion cells, we here show that both local and global contrast adaptation exist and that this diversity in spatial scope can contribute to the functional diversity of retinal ganglion cell types.

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