School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
School of Biomedical Engineering, Guangdong Medical University, Dongguan, People's Republic of China.
J Neural Eng. 2022 Jul 18;19(4). doi: 10.1088/1741-2552/ac7d75.
. Ultrasound modulates the firing activity of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs), but the effects of lower-frequency, lower-intensity ultrasound on RGCs and underlying mechanism(s) remain poorly understood. This study aims to address these questions.. Multi-electrode recordings were used in this study to record the firing sequences of RGCs in isolated mouse retinas. RGCs' background firing activities as well as their light responses were recorded with or without ultrasound stimulation. Cross-correlation analyses were performed to investigate the possible cellular/circuitry mechanism(s) underlying ultrasound modulation.. It was found that ultrasound stimulation of isolated mouse retina enhanced the background activity of ON-RGCs and OFF-RGCs. In addition, background ultrasound stimulation shortened the light response latency of both ON-RGCs and OFF-RGCs, while enhancing part of the RGCs' (both ON- and OFF-subtypes) light response and decreasing that of the others. In some ON-OFF RGCs, the ON- and OFF-responses of an individual cell were oppositely modulated by the ultrasound stimulation, which suggests that ultrasound stimulation does not necessarily exert its effect directly on RGCs, but rather via its influence on other type(s) of cells. By analyzing the cross-correlation between the firing sequences of RGC pairs, it was found that concerted activity occurred during ultrasound stimulation differed from that occurred during light stimulation, in both spatial and temporal aspects. These results suggest that the cellular circuits involved in ultrasound- and light-induced concerted activities are different and glial cells may be involved in the circuit in response to ultrasound.. These findings demonstrate that ultrasound affects neuronal background activity and light responsiveness, which are critical for visual information processing. These results may also imply a hitherto unrecognized role of glial cell activation in the bidirectional modulation effects of RGCs and may be critical for the nervous system.
. 超声调节视网膜神经节细胞（RGC）的放电活动，但低频、低强度超声对 RGC 的影响及其潜在机制尚不清楚。本研究旨在解决这些问题。.. 在这项研究中，使用多电极记录来记录分离的小鼠视网膜中 RGC 的放电序列。记录了有无超声刺激时 RGC 的背景放电活动及其光反应。进行了互相关分析，以研究超声调制潜在的细胞/电路机制。.. 结果发现，超声刺激分离的小鼠视网膜增强了 ON-RGCs 和 OFF-RGCs 的背景活动。此外，背景超声刺激缩短了 ON-RGCs 和 OFF-RGCs 的光反应潜伏期，同时增强了部分 RGCs（ON 和 OFF 两种亚型）的光反应，降低了其他 RGCs 的光反应。在一些 ON-OFF RGCs 中，单个细胞的 ON 和 OFF 反应被超声刺激相反地调节，这表明超声刺激不一定直接作用于 RGCs，而是通过其对其他类型细胞的影响。通过分析 RGC 对放电序列的互相关，发现超声刺激期间的协同活动在空间和时间方面与光刺激期间的协同活动不同。这些结果表明，参与超声和光诱导协同活动的细胞回路不同，胶质细胞可能参与了对超声的反应回路。.. 这些发现表明，超声会影响神经元的背景活动和光反应性，这对视觉信息处理至关重要。这些结果还可能暗示胶质细胞激活在 RGC 的双向调制作用中起着迄今为止尚未被认识的作用，这对神经系统可能很重要。
