Department of Electrical Engineering, Columbia University, New Yok, NY, USA.
Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, UNSW Australia, NSW, Australia.
Sci Rep. 2017 Oct 23;7(1):13802. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-14357-1.
Electrical stimulation is an important tool in neuroscience research and clinically. In the retina, extensive work has revealed how the retinal ganglion cells respond to extracellular electrical stimulation. But little is known about the responses of other neuronal types, and more generally, how the network responds to stimulation. We conducted a survey of electrically evoked responses, over a range of pulse amplitudes and pulse widths, for 21 cell types spanning the inner two layers of the rabbit retina. It revealed: (i) the evoked responses of some neurons were charge insensitive; (ii) pulse-width sensitivity varied between cell types, allowing preferential recruitment of cell types; and (iii) 10-20 Hz damped oscillations across retinal layers. These oscillations were generated by reciprocal excitatory / inhibitory synapses, at locations as early as the cone-horizontal-cell synapses. These results illustrate at cellular resolution how a network responds to extracellular stimulation, and could inform the development of bioelectronic implants for treating blindness.
电刺激是神经科学研究和临床中的重要工具。在视网膜中，大量的工作已经揭示了视网膜神经节细胞如何对外界电刺激做出反应。但是，对于其他神经元类型的反应以及更一般地说，网络如何对刺激做出反应，人们知之甚少。我们对跨越兔视网膜内两层的 21 种细胞类型进行了调查，以研究在一系列脉冲幅度和脉冲宽度下的电诱发反应。结果表明：（i）一些神经元的诱发反应与电荷量无关；（ii）不同细胞类型的脉冲宽度敏感性不同，从而允许优先招募特定的细胞类型；（iii）在视网膜层之间存在 10-20Hz 的阻尼振荡。这些振荡是由相互的兴奋性/抑制性突触产生的，其位置早于视锥细胞-水平细胞突触。这些结果以细胞分辨率说明了网络如何对外界刺激做出反应，并且可以为治疗失明的生物电子植入物的开发提供信息。
