Temporally Diverse Excitation Generates Direction-Selective Responses in ON- and OFF-Type Retinal Starburst Amacrine Cells

• Published in: Cell reports (Cambridge) 2017-02, Vol.18 (6), p.1356-1365
• Main Authors: Fransen, James W., Borghuis, Bart G.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Amacrine Cells - physiology; Animals; bipolar cell; circular white noise; Dendrites - physiology; direction selectivity; Mice; Mice, Inbred C57BL; Models, Neurological; mouse; NMDA receptor; Photic Stimulation - methods; retina; Retina - physiology; reverse correlation; starburst amacrine cell; Synapses - physiology
• ISSN: 2211-1247; 2211-1247
• DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2017.01.026

The complexity of sensory receptive fields increases from one synaptic stage to the next. In many cases, increased complexity is achieved through spatiotemporal interactions between convergent excitatory and inhibitory inputs. Here, we present evidence that direction selectivity (DS), a complex emergent receptive field property of retinal starburst amacrine cells (SACs), is generated by spatiotemporal interactions between functionally diverse excitatory inputs. Electrophysiological whole-cell recordings from ON and OFF SACs show distinct temporal differences in excitation following proximal compared with distal stimulation of their receptive fields. Distal excitation is both faster and more transient, ruling out passive filtering by the dendrites and indicating a task-specific specialization. Model simulations demonstrate that this specific organization of excitation generates robust DS responses in SACs, consistent with elementary motion detector models. These results indicate that selective integration of spatiotemporally patterned excitation is a computational mechanism for motion detection in the mammalian retina. [Display omitted] •Direct recordings of the motion-evoked responses of OFF starburst amacrine cells•ON and OFF starburst amacrine cells receive spatiotemporally patterned excitation•Spatiotemporally patterned excitation generates direction-selective responses•Direction selectivity is an excitation-driven emergent receptive field property Fransen and Borghuis use whole-cell electrophysiology to demonstrate that ON- and OFF-type starburst amacrine cells, key players in retinal direction selectivity, receive temporally diverse excitation across their dendritic arbors. Integration of this input in model simulations generates direction selective responses as an emergent receptive field property.