TY - JOUR
T1 - Specific wiring of distinct amacrine cells in the directionally selective retinal circuit permits independent coding of direction and size
AU - Hoggarth, Alex
AU - McLaughlin, Amanda J.
AU - Ronellenfitch, Kara
AU - Trenholm, Stuart
AU - Vasandani, Rishi
AU - Sethuramanujam, Santhosh
AU - Schwab, David
AU - Briggman, Kevin L.
AU - Awatramani, Gautam B.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank K. Delaney and B. Chow for their useful discussions, J. Boyd (University of British Columbia) for help with 2-photon imaging software, A. Sullivan and A. Nanda for providing helpful technical support, and T. MacKellar for help with morphological reconstructions. This work was supported by the Marguerite Adamson Estate Fund (A.H. and A.J.M.) and operating grants from the Foundation Fighting Blindness (Canada) and Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR- 130268-2013) awarded to G.B.A.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2015/4/8
Y1 - 2015/4/8
N2 - Local and global forms of inhibition controlling directionally selective ganglion cells (DSGCs) in the mammalian retina are well documented. It is established that local inhibition arising from GABAergic starburst amacrine cells (SACs) strongly contributesto direction selectivity. Here, we demonstrate thatincreasing ambient illumination leads to the recruitment of GABAergic wide-field amacrine cells (WACs) endowing the DS circuit with an additional feature: size selectivity. Using a combination of electrophysiology, pharmacology, and light/electron microscopy, we show that WACs predominantly contact presynaptic bipolar cells, which drive direct excitation and feedforward inhibition (through SACs) to DSGCs, thus maintaining the appropriate balance of inhibition/excitation required for generating DS. This circuit arrangement permits high-fidelitydirection coding over a range of ambient lightlevels, over which size selectivity is adjusted. Together, these results provide novel insights into the anatomical and functional arrangement of multiple inhibitory interneurons within a single computational module in the retina.
AB - Local and global forms of inhibition controlling directionally selective ganglion cells (DSGCs) in the mammalian retina are well documented. It is established that local inhibition arising from GABAergic starburst amacrine cells (SACs) strongly contributesto direction selectivity. Here, we demonstrate thatincreasing ambient illumination leads to the recruitment of GABAergic wide-field amacrine cells (WACs) endowing the DS circuit with an additional feature: size selectivity. Using a combination of electrophysiology, pharmacology, and light/electron microscopy, we show that WACs predominantly contact presynaptic bipolar cells, which drive direct excitation and feedforward inhibition (through SACs) to DSGCs, thus maintaining the appropriate balance of inhibition/excitation required for generating DS. This circuit arrangement permits high-fidelitydirection coding over a range of ambient lightlevels, over which size selectivity is adjusted. Together, these results provide novel insights into the anatomical and functional arrangement of multiple inhibitory interneurons within a single computational module in the retina.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.neuron.2015.02.035
DO - 10.1016/j.neuron.2015.02.035
M3 - Article
C2 - 25801705
AN - SCOPUS:84930379134
SN - 0896-6273
VL - 86
SP - 276
EP - 291
JO - Neuron
JF - Neuron
IS - 1
ER -