Signals and noise in the mammalian retina

The mammalian retina serves as a convenient model for signal-to-noise ratio considerations in the nervous system as a whole, since it contains a rich diversity of forms of signaling and sources of noise. In this presentation, the field of neural signaling and noise in the retina is reviewed for a science-educated but non-neurobiologist audience. Some observations that bear on the question of neural signaling and the thoughts that these observations provoked are presented. The authors suggest that a major step forward in the understanding of the nervous system could be made if the plethora of exciting new observations could be reconciled in new generalizations about neural signaling.