Mapping the Optic Circuits

"The properties of optical stimuli need to be conveyed from the eye to the brain. To do this efficiently, the relevant information is extracted by pre-processing in the eye," reports MedicalNewsToday. " For example, some of the so-called retinal ganglion cells, which transmit visual information to the brain via the optic nerve, only react to light stimuli moving in a particular direction. This direction selectivity is generated by inhibitory interneurons that influence the activity of the ganglion cells through their synapses. Using a novel microscopy method developed at the Institute, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg have now discovered that the distribution of the synapses between ganglion cells and interneurons follows highly specific rules. Only those dendrites that extend from the cell body of the amacrine cell in a direction opposite to the preferred direction of the ganglion cell connect with the ganglion cell."