Species-specific wiring for direction selectivity in the mammalian retina

Huayu Ding, Robert G. Smith, Alon Poleg-Polsky, Jeffrey S. Diamond and Kevin L. Briggman ()
Additional contact information
Huayu Ding: Synaptic Physiology Section, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
Robert G. Smith: University of Pennsylvania
Alon Poleg-Polsky: Synaptic Physiology Section, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
Jeffrey S. Diamond: Synaptic Physiology Section, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
Kevin L. Briggman: Max Planck Institute for Medical Research

Nature, 2016, vol. 535, issue 7610, 105-110

Abstract: Abstract Directionally tuned signalling in starburst amacrine cell (SAC) dendrites lies at the heart of the circuit that detects the direction of moving stimuli in the mammalian retina. The relative contributions of intrinsic cellular properties and network connectivity to SAC direction selectivity remain unclear. Here we present a detailed connectomic reconstruction of SAC circuitry in mouse retina and describe two previously unknown features of synapse distributions along SAC dendrites: input and output synapses are segregated, with inputs restricted to proximal dendrites; and the distribution of inhibitory inputs is fundamentally different from that observed in rabbit retina. An anatomically constrained SAC network model suggests that SAC–SAC wiring differences between mouse and rabbit retina underlie distinct contributions of synaptic inhibition to velocity and contrast tuning and receptive field structure. In particular, the model indicates that mouse connectivity enables SACs to encode lower linear velocities that account for smaller eye diameter, thereby conserving angular velocity tuning. These predictions are confirmed with calcium imaging of mouse SAC dendrites responding to directional stimuli.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature18609 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:535:y:2016:i:7610:d:10.1038_nature18609

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature18609

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().