Correlation Among Retinal Directionally Selective Cells

描述（来自申请人的摘要）： 视觉神经科学中的一个核心问题是绑定问题。如何 大脑知道它必须将神经元的反应与小的视觉信号结合起来， 窗口来获得大物体的连贯图像？长期目标之一 拟议的研究是阐明视网膜的机制， 约束力这些机制的三种假设涉及间隙连接， 神经节细胞，以及常见的胆碱能、多巴胺能和GABA能突触。 四个具体的目标将测试这些假设在定向选择 海龟和兔子的神经节细胞，因为长轮廓结合的证据 存在于这些细胞中： 1)这个目标将测试毫秒相关是否可以编码长，移动 通过同时记录相邻方向敏感的轮廓 细胞电生理技术。 2)这里的实验将使用同步电生理记录 和药理学来测试GABA、乙酰胆碱、谷氨酸和缝隙连接 视网膜相关性假说。 3)具体目标3将研究是否发生长程相关， 将定向选择性细胞群体与活的 Ca2+荧光。 4）最后，最后一个目标将测试胆碱能假说的预测 通过测量运动适应后乙酰胆碱的释放来进行相关性 用高效液相色谱法。 结合的研究可能具有重要的健康相关性。精神分裂 例如，患者无法在依赖于长距离的任务中检测轮廓。 方向信号的空间相互作用。和整合 在弱视中跨空间的定向信息受损。视黄醇结合 缺陷可能会导致这些综合问题中的一些，但即使不是， 视网膜的策略和机制可能揭示了其他领域的机制 的大脑。

DESCRIPTION (From the Applicant's Abstract): A central problem in visual neuroscience is the binding problem. How does the brain know that it has to bind the responses of neurons with small visual windows to obtain coherent pictures of large objects? One long-term goal of the proposed research is to elucidate the retinal mechanisms underlying visual binding. Three hypotheses for these mechanisms involve gap junctions between ganglion cells, and common cholinergic, glutamatergic, and GABAergic synapses. Four specific aims will test these hypotheses in directionally selective ganglion cells of turtles and rabbits, since evidence of long-contour binding exists for these cells: 1)This aim will test whether millisecond correlation could code long, moving contours by recording simultaneously from neighbor directionally sensitive cells with electrophysiological techniques. 2)The experiments here will use simultaneous electrophysiological recordings and pharmacology to test the GABA, acetylcholine, glutamate, and gap-junction hypotheses of retinal correlation. 3)Specific aim 3 will study whether long-range correlation takes place by mapping the population of directionally selective cells with live Ca2+fluorescence. 4)Finally, the last aim will test a prediction of the cholinergic hypothesis for correlation by measuring acetylcholine release following motion adaptation with high performance liquid chromatography. The study of binding may have important health relevance. Schizophrenia patients, for instance, cannot detect contours in tasks relying on long-range spatial interactions of orientational signals. And the integration of orientation information across space is impaired in amblyopia. Retinal binding defects may contribute to some of these integrative problems, but even if not, retinal strategies and mechanisms may shed light on mechanisms in other areas of the brain.