Abstract
A fundamental organizing plan of the retina is that visual information is divided into ON and OFF streams that are processed in separate layers. This functional dichotomy originates in the ON and OFF bipolar cells, which then make excitatory glutamatergic synapses onto amacrine and ganglion cells in the inner plexiform layer. We have identified an amacrine cell (AC), the sign-inverting (SI) AC, that challenges this fundamental plan. The glycinergic, ON-stratifying SI-AC has OFF light responses. In opposition to the classical wiring diagrams, it receives inhibitory inputs from glutamatergic ON bipolar cells at mGluR8 synapses, and excitatory inputs from an OFF wide-field AC at electrical synapses. This “inhibitory ON center - excitatory OFF surround” receptive-field of the SI-AC allows it to use monostratified dendrites to conduct crossover inhibition and push-pull activation to enhance light detection by ACs and RGCs in the dark and feature discrimination in the light.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 5937 |
Journal | Nature communications |
Volume | 14 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Dec 2023 |
Funding
This work was supported by NIH grants R01 EY030169 (Y.Z.), R01 EY018204 (S.H.D. and Y.Z.), R01EY032506 R01 (Y.Z. and S.H.D.), R01 EY012141 (S.H.D.), EY029985 (R.M.D.), F31 EY031985 (A.J.), Whitehall Foundation Grant (Y.Z., 2017-05-20), and Research to Prevent Blindness.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Chemistry
- General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
- General Physics and Astronomy