Electrophysiological Approaches to Studying Normal and Abnormal Retinotectal Circuit Development in the Xenopus Tadpole

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (11) ◽  
pp. pdb.prot106898 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kara G. Pratt
Keyword(s):  
Retinal Ganglion Cells ◽  
Neural Circuits ◽  
Ganglion Cells ◽  
Ex Vivo ◽  
Retinal Ganglion ◽  
Functional Development ◽  
Electrophysiological Recordings ◽  
Circuit Development ◽  
Tectal Neurons ◽  
Main Component

The Xenopus tadpole retinotectal projection is the main component of the amphibian visual system. It comprises the retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) in the eye, which project an axon to synapse onto tectal neurons in the optic tectum. There are many attributes of this relatively simple projection that render it uniquely well-suited for studying the functional development of neural circuits. One major experimental advantage of this circuit is that it can be genetically or pharmacologically altered and then assessed at high resolution via whole-cell electrophysiological recordings using an ex vivo isolated brain preparation. This protocol provides instructions for performing such electrophysiological investigations using the ex-vivo-isolated brain preparation. It allows one to measure many different aspects of synaptic transmission between the RGC axons and individual postsynaptic tectal neurons, including AMPA (α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid) to NMDA (N-methyl-d-aspartate) ratios, strength of individual RGC axons, paired pulse facilitation, and strength of individual synapses.

scholarly journals A method for single-neuron chronic recording from the retina in awake mice

Science ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 360 (6396) ◽  
pp. 1447-1451 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guosong Hong ◽  
Tian-Ming Fu ◽  
Mu Qiao ◽  
Robert D. Viveros ◽  
Xiao Yang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Retinal Ganglion Cells ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Single Neuron ◽  
Ganglion Cells ◽  
Ex Vivo ◽  
Neural Circuitry ◽  
Retinal Ganglion ◽  
Chronic Recording ◽  
The Brain

The retina, which processes visual information and sends it to the brain, is an excellent model for studying neural circuitry. It has been probed extensively ex vivo but has been refractory to chronic in vivo electrophysiology. We report a nonsurgical method to achieve chronically stable in vivo recordings from single retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) in awake mice. We developed a noncoaxial intravitreal injection scheme in which injected mesh electronics unrolls inside the eye and conformally coats the highly curved retina without compromising normal eye functions. The method allows 16-channel recordings from multiple types of RGCs with stable responses to visual stimuli for at least 2 weeks, and reveals circadian rhythms in RGC responses over multiple day/night cycles.

scholarly journals Adaptation in cone photoreceptors contributes to an unexpected insensitivity of On parasol retinal ganglion cells to spatial structure in natural images

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhou Yu ◽  
Maxwell H Turner ◽  
Fred Rieke
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Structure ◽  
Retinal Ganglion Cells ◽  
Neural Circuits ◽  
Ganglion Cells ◽  
Nonlinear Behavior ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Retinal Ganglion ◽  
Cone Photoreceptors ◽  
Strongly Nonlinear ◽  
Visual Inputs

Neural circuits are constructed from nonlinear building blocks, and not surprisingly overall circuit behavior is often strongly nonlinear. But neural circuits can also behave near linearly, and some circuits shift from linear to nonlinear behavior depending on stimulus conditions. Such control of the linearity or nonlinearity of circuit behavior is fundamental to neural computation. Here we study a surprising stimulus dependence of the responses of On (but not Off) parasol retinal ganglion cells: these cells respond nonlinearly to spatial structure in temporally-modulated grating stimuli but linearly to spatial structure in flashed gratings and natural visual inputs. We show that this unexpected response linearity can be explained by a shift in the balance of excitatory and inhibitory synaptic inputs that originates at least in part from adaptation in the cone photoreceptors. More generally, this highlights how subtle asymmetries in signaling - here in the cone signals - can qualitatively alter circuit computation.

scholarly journals Naturalistic spatiotemporal stimulus modulation during epiretinal stimulation increases the persistence of retinal ganglion cell responsivity

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naïg Aurélia Ludmilla Chenais ◽  
Marta Jole Ildelfonsa Airaghi Leccardi ◽  
Diego Ghezzi
Keyword(s):  
Retinal Ganglion Cells ◽  
Ganglion Cells ◽  
Artificial Vision ◽  
Retinal Ganglion ◽  
Electric Pulses ◽  
Retinal Stimulation ◽  
Electrophysiological Recordings ◽  
Stimulus Modulation ◽  
Stimulation Of ◽  
Blind Patients

AbstractObjectiveRetinal stimulation in blind patients evokes the sensation of discrete points of light called phosphenes, which allows them performing visual guided tasks, such as orientation, navigation, object recognition, object manipulation and reading. However, the clinical benefit of artificial vision in profoundly blind patients is still tenuous, as several engineering and biophysical obstacles keep it away from natural perception. The relative preservation of the inner retinal neurons in hereditary degenerative retinal diseases, such as retinitis pigmentosa, supports artificial vision through the network-mediated stimulation of retinal ganglion cells. However, the response of retinal ganglion cells to repeated electrical stimulation rapidly declines, primarily because of the intrinsic desensitisation of their excitatory network. In patients, upon repetitive stimulation, phosphenes fade out in less than half of a second, which drastically limits the understanding of the percept.ApproachA more naturalistic stimulation strategy, based on spatiotemporal modulation of electric pulses, could overcome the desensitisation of retinal ganglion cells. To investigate this hypothesis, we performed network-mediated epiretinal stimulations paired to electrophysiological recordings in retinas explanted from both male and female retinal degeneration 10 mice.Main resultsThe results showed that the spatial and temporal modulation of the network-mediated epiretinal stimulation prolonged the responsivity of retinal ganglion cells from 400 ms up to 4.2 s.SignificanceA time-varied, non-stationary and interrupted stimulation of the retinal network, mimicking involuntary microsaccades, might reduce the fading of the visual percept and improve the clinical efficacy of retinal implants.

Quantitative ex vivo detection of rodent retinal ganglion cells by immunolabeling Brn-3b

2004 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen M Leahy ◽  
Richard L Ornberg ◽  
Yu Wang ◽  
Yanli Zhu ◽  
Jeffrey M Gidday ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Retinal Ganglion Cells ◽  
Ganglion Cells ◽  
Ex Vivo ◽  
Retinal Ganglion

scholarly journals Revealing structure components of the retina by deep learning networks

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qi Yan ◽  
Zhaofei Yu ◽  
Feng Chen ◽  
Jian K. Liu
Keyword(s):  
Retinal Ganglion Cells ◽  
Ganglion Cells ◽  
Visual Object ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
Retinal Ganglion ◽  
Neuronal Circuits ◽  
Learning Networks ◽  
Deep Convolutional Neural Networks ◽  
Electrophysiological Recordings ◽  
Complex Circuits

AbstractDeep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have demonstrated impressive performance on visual object classification tasks. In addition, it is a useful model for predication of neuronal responses recorded in visual system. However, there is still no clear understanding of what CNNs learn in terms of visual neuronal circuits. Visualizing CNN’s features to obtain possible connections to neuronscience under-pinnings is not easy due to highly complex circuits from the retina to higher visual cortex. Here we address this issue by focusing on single retinal ganglion cells with a simple model and electrophysiological recordings from salamanders. By training CNNs with white noise images to predicate neural responses, we found that convolutional filters learned in the end are resembling to biological components of the retinal circuit. Features represented by these filters tile the space of conventional receptive field of retinal ganglion cells. These results suggest that CNN could be used to reveal structure components of neuronal circuits.

scholarly journals The mito-QC Reporter for Quantitative Mitophagy Assessment in Primary Retinal Ganglion Cells and Experimental Glaucoma Models

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 1882
Author(s):  
Ines Rosignol ◽  
Beatriz Villarejo-Zori ◽  
Petra Teresak ◽  
Elena Sierra-Filardi ◽  
Xandra Pereiro ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Retinal Ganglion Cells ◽  
Ganglion Cells ◽  
Ex Vivo ◽  
Iron Chelator ◽  
Stress Factors ◽  
Retinal Ganglion ◽  
Nerve Crush ◽  
Experimental Glaucoma

Mitochondrial damage plays a prominent role in glaucoma. The only way cells can degrade whole mitochondria is via autophagy, in a process called mitophagy. Thus, studying mitophagy in the context of glaucoma is essential to understand the disease. Up to date limited tools are available for analyzing mitophagy in vivo. We have taken advantage of the mito-QC reporter, a recently generated mouse model that allows an accurate mitophagy assessment to fill this gap. We used primary RGCs and retinal explants derived from mito-QC mice to quantify mitophagy activation in vitro and ex vivo. We also analyzed mitophagy in retinal ganglion cells (RGCs), in vivo, using different mitophagy inducers, as well as after optic nerve crush (ONC) in mice, a commonly used surgical procedure to model glaucoma. Using mito-QC reporter we quantified mitophagy induced by several known inducers in primary RGCs in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo. We also found that RGCs were rescued from some glaucoma relevant stress factors by incubation with the iron chelator deferiprone (DFP). Thus, the mito-QC reporter-based model is a valuable tool for accurately analyzing mitophagy in the context of glaucoma.

scholarly journals Modeling Activity and Target-Dependent Developmental Cell Death of Mouse Retinal Ganglion Cells Ex Vivo

PLoS ONE ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. e31105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvie Voyatzis ◽  
Aude Muzerelle ◽  
Patricia Gaspar ◽  
Xavier Nicol
Keyword(s):  
Cell Death ◽  
Retinal Ganglion Cells ◽  
Ganglion Cells ◽  
Ex Vivo ◽  
Retinal Ganglion ◽  
Developmental Cell Death
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document