| First Author | Johnson KP | Year | 2018 |
| Journal | Cell Rep | Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 6 | Pages | 1462-1472 |
| PubMed ID | 29425502 | Mgi Jnum | J:271064 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:6278398 | Doi | 10.1016/j.celrep.2018.01.037 |
| Citation | Johnson KP, et al. (2018) A Pixel-Encoder Retinal Ganglion Cell with Spatially Offset Excitatory and Inhibitory Receptive Fields. Cell Rep 22(6):1462-1472 |
| abstractText | The spike trains of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) are the only source of visual information to the brain. Here, we genetically identify an RGC type in mice that functions as a pixel encoder and increases firing to light increments (PixON-RGC). PixON-RGCs have medium-sized dendritic arbors and non-canonical center-surround receptive fields. From their receptive field center, PixON-RGCs receive only excitatory input, which encodes contrast and spatial information linearly. From their receptive field surround, PixON-RGCs receive only inhibitory input, which is temporally matched to the excitatory center input. As a result, the firing rate of PixON-RGCs linearly encodes local image contrast. Spatially offset (i.e., truly lateral) inhibition of PixON-RGCs arises from spiking GABAergic amacrine cells. The receptive field organization of PixON-RGCs is independent of stimulus wavelength (i.e., achromatic). PixON-RGCs project predominantly to the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN) of the thalamus and likely contribute to visual perception. |
