Regenerating optic pathways from the eye to the brain.

Humans are highly visual. Retinal ganglion cells (RGCs), the neurons that connect the eyes to the brain, fail to regenerate after damage, eventually leading to blindness. Here, we review research on regeneration and repair of the optic system.

Eye-specific retinogeniculate segregation proceeds normally following disruption of patterned spontaneous retinal activity.

Background: Spontaneous retinal activity (SRA) is important during eye-specific segregation within the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN), but the feature(s) of activity critical for retinogeniculate refinement are controversial. Pharmacologically or genetically manipulating cholinergic signaling during SRA perturbs correlated retinal ganglion cell (RGC) spiking and disrupts eye-specific retinofugal refinement in vivo, consistent with an instructive role for SRA during visual system development. Paradoxically, ablating the starburst amacrine cells (SACs) that generate cholinergic spontaneous activity disrupts correlated RGC firing without impacting retinal activity levels or eye-specific segregation in the dLGN.

Photoresponse diversity among the five types of intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells.

Intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) mediate non-image-forming visual responses, including pupillary constriction, circadian photoentrainment and suppression of pineal melatonin secretion. Five morphological types of ipRGCs, M1-M5, have been identified in mice. In order to understand their functions better, we studied the photoresponses of all five cell types, by whole-cell recording from fluorescently labelled ipRGCs visualized using multiphoton microscopy.

Competition is a driving force in topographic mapping.

Topographic maps are the primary means of relaying spatial information in the brain. Understanding the mechanisms by which they form has been a goal of experimental and theoretical neuroscientists for decades. The projection of the retina to the superior colliculus (SC)/tectum has been an important model used to show that graded molecular cues and patterned retinal activity are required for topographic map formation.

Spatial-temporal patterns of retinal waves underlying activity-dependent refinement of retinofugal projections.

During development, retinal axons project coarsely within their visual targets before refining to form organized synaptic connections. Spontaneous retinal activity, in the form of acetylcholine-driven retinal waves, is proposed to be necessary for establishing these projection patterns. In particular, both axonal terminations of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) and the size of receptive fields of target neurons are larger in mice that lack the beta2 subunit of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (beta2KO).

Genetic identification of an On-Off direction-selective retinal ganglion cell subtype reveals a layer-specific subcortical map of posterior motion.

Motion detection is an essential component of visual processing. On-Off direction-selective retinal ganglion cells (On-Off DSGCs) detect objects moving along specific axes of the visual field due to their precise retinal circuitry. The brain circuitry of On-Off DSGCs, however, is largely unknown.