Publication Date:
1991-05-17
Description:
The development of orderly connections in the mammalian visual system depends on action potentials in the optic nerve fibers, even before the retina receives visual input. In particular, it has been suggested that correlated firing of retinal ganglion cells in the same eye directs the segregation of their synaptic terminals into eye-specific layers within the lateral geniculate nucleus. Such correlations in electrical activity were found by simultaneous recording of the extracellular action potentials of up to 100 ganglion cells in the isolated retina of the newborn ferret and the fetal cat. These neurons fired spikes in nearly synchronous bursts lasting a few seconds and separated by 1 to 2 minutes of silence. Individual bursts consisted of a wave of excitation, several hundred micrometers wide, sweeping across the retina at about 100 micrometers per second. These concerted firing patterns have the appropriate spatial and temporal properties to guide the refinement of connections between the retina and the lateral geniculate nucleus.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Meister, M -- Wong, R O -- Baylor, D A -- Shatz, C J -- EY 05750/EY/NEI NIH HHS/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1991 May 17;252(5008):939-43.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Neurobiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, CA 94305.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2035024" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Action Potentials/drug effects
;
Aging
;
Animals
;
Animals, Newborn
;
Calcium/pharmacology
;
Cats
;
Electrophysiology/methods
;
Ferrets
;
In Vitro Techniques
;
Retina/*growth & development
;
Retinal Ganglion Cells/drug effects/*physiology
;
Vision, Ocular
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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