Freeman Jeremy, Field Greg D, Li Peter H, Greschner Martin, Gunning Deborah E, Mathieson Keith, Sher Alexander, Litke Alan M, Paninski Liam, Simoncelli Eero P, Chichilnisky E J
Janelia Research Center, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, United States.
Center for Neural Science, New York, United States.
Elife. 2015 Oct 30;4:e05241. doi: 10.7554/eLife.05241.
The function of a neural circuit is shaped by the computations performed by its interneurons, which in many cases are not easily accessible to experimental investigation. Here, we elucidate the transformation of visual signals flowing from the input to the output of the primate retina, using a combination of large-scale multi-electrode recordings from an identified ganglion cell type, visual stimulation targeted at individual cone photoreceptors, and a hierarchical computational model. The results reveal nonlinear subunits in the circuity of OFF midget ganglion cells, which subserve high-resolution vision. The model explains light responses to a variety of stimuli more accurately than a linear model, including stimuli targeted to cones within and across subunits. The recovered model components are consistent with known anatomical organization of midget bipolar interneurons. These results reveal the spatial structure of linear and nonlinear encoding, at the resolution of single cells and at the scale of complete circuits.
神经回路的功能由其中间神经元执行的计算所塑造，而在许多情况下，中间神经元不易通过实验研究进行探究。在这里，我们结合对一种已识别的神经节细胞类型进行的大规模多电极记录、针对单个视锥光感受器的视觉刺激以及分层计算模型，阐明了从灵长类动物视网膜输入流向输出的视觉信号的转换过程。结果揭示了OFF侏儒神经节细胞回路中的非线性亚基，这些亚基有助于高分辨率视觉。该模型比线性模型更准确地解释了对各种刺激的光反应，包括针对亚基内部和跨亚基的视锥的刺激。恢复的模型组件与侏儒双极中间神经元的已知解剖组织一致。这些结果揭示了单细胞分辨率和完整回路尺度下线性和非线性编码的空间结构。
