Light-evoked dendritic spikes in sustained but not transient rabbit retinal ganglion cells

Dendritic computations have a central role in neuronal function, but it is unknown how cell-class heterogeneity of dendritic electrical excitability shapes physiologically engaged neuronal and circuit computations. To address this, we examined dendritic integration in closely related classes of reti...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neuron (Cambridge, Mass.) Mass.), 2022-09, Vol.110 (17), p.2802-2814.e3
Main Authors: Brombas, Arne, Zhou, Xiangyu, Williams, Stephen R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
dendrite
neuronal circuit
neuronal computation
vision
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Dendritic computations have a central role in neuronal function, but it is unknown how cell-class heterogeneity of dendritic electrical excitability shapes physiologically engaged neuronal and circuit computations. To address this, we examined dendritic integration in closely related classes of retinal ganglion cells (GCs) using simultaneous somato-dendritic electrical recording techniques in a functionally intact circuit. Simultaneous recordings revealed sustained OFF-GCs generated powerful dendritic spikes in response to visual input that drove action potential firing. In contrast, the dendrites of transient OFF-GCs were passive and did not generate dendritic spikes. Dendritic spike generation allowed sustained, but not transient, OFF-GCs to signal into action potential output the local motion of visual stimuli to produce a continuous wave of action potential firing in adjacent cells as images moved across the retina. Conversely, this representation was highly fragmented in transient OFF-GCs. Thus, a heterogeneity of dendritic excitability defines the computations executed by classes of GCs. •Dendritic electrical excitability is cell-class-specific in rabbit retinal OFF-GCs•Visual stimuli initiate dendritic spikes in sustained but not in transient OFF-GCs•Dendritic spikes compute local motion in sustained OFF-GCs•OFF-GC classes signal distinct aspects of an approaching predator Brombas et al. perform simultaneous electrical recordings from the soma and dendrites of rabbit OFF retinal ganglion cells to reveal that the differential expression of active dendritic integration defines cell-class-specific computations and the representation of moving visual stimuli.
ISSN:0896-6273
1097-4199
DOI:10.1016/j.neuron.2022.06.009