An offset ON–OFF receptive field is created by gap junctions between distinct types of retinal ganglion cells

Sam Cooler, Gregory W. Schwartz*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

In the vertebrate retina, the location of a neuron’s receptive field in visual space closely corresponds to the physical location of synaptic input onto its dendrites, a relationship called the retinotopic map. We report the discovery of a systematic spatial offset between the ON and OFF receptive subfields in F-mini-ON retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). Surprisingly, this property does not come from spatially offset ON and OFF layer dendrites, but instead arises from a network of electrical synapses via gap junctions to RGCs of a different type, the F-mini-OFF. We show that the asymmetric morphology and connectivity of these RGCs can explain their receptive field offset, and we use a multicell model to explore the effects of receptive field offset on the precision of edge-location representation in a population. This RGC network forms a new electrical channel combining the ON and OFF feedforward pathways within the output layer of the retina.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)105-115
Number of pages11
JournalNature neuroscience
Volume24
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2021

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Neuroscience

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