CORRELATED NEURONAL DISCHARGES THE RETINA

这项建议的目标是调查功能 猫视网膜相关神经元放电的意义。 传统上，视网膜神经节细胞被认为是神经传递细胞 通过独立地调节它们的发射频率来传递信息，然而我们也 要知道，细胞群可以以几乎相同的速度发出神经冲动 时间到了。这些同步触发事件是否对 传递视觉信息或仅仅是视网膜的一种表面现象 布线仍然是一个悬而未决的问题。我建议同时录制 来自体内的神经节细胞体和视束纤维，而 刺激猫的视网膜，在空间和时间上有不同的模式。 射击事件应该依赖于刺激，如果它们真的依赖刺激的话 与猫的视觉相关。具体目标是： 1)确定用于关联下列放电的最佳刺激 猫视网膜神经节细胞在体。2)测量的强度 最佳刺激诱发的神经节细胞放电的相关性。 结果将消除关于以下一个或多个假设 相关放电：它们编码不同的神经信息，链接 刺激功能存在于空间，或者是视网膜发育的残留物。

The objective of this proposal is to investigate the functional significance of correlated neuronal discharges in the cat retina. Traditionally, retinal ganglion cells are thought to transmit neural messages by independently modulating their firing rates, yet we also know that groups of cells can fire nerve impulses at nearly the same time. Whether these synchronous firing events are important for transmitting visual information or merely an epiphenomenon of retinal wiring remains an open question. I propose to record simultaneously from ganglion-cell bodies and optic-tract fibers in vivo while stimulating the retina of cats with patterns varying in space and time. The firing events should be stimulus dependent if they are at all relevant to cat vision. The specific aims are: 1) To determine the optimal stimulus for correlating the discharges of cat retinal ganglion cells in vivo. 2) To measure the strength of correlation of ganglion-cell discharges evoked by the optimal stimulus. The results will eliminate one or more of the following hypotheses about correlated discharges: they encode distinct neural messages, link stimulus features in space, or are a remnant of retinal development.