The temporal structure of the inner retina at a single glance
Abstract
The retina decomposes visual stimuli into parallel channels that encode different features of the visual environment. Central to this computation is the synaptic processing in a dense layer of neuropil, the so-called inner plexiform layer (IPL). Here, different types of bipolar cells stratifying at distinct depths relay the excitatory feedforward drive from photoreceptors to amacrine and ganglion cells. Current experimental techniques for studying processing in the IPL do not allow imaging the entire IPL simultaneously in the intact tissue. Here, we extend a two-photon microscope with an electrically tunable lens allowing us to obtain optical vertical slices of the IPL, which provide a complete picture of the response diversity of bipolar cells at a “single glance”. The nature of these axial recordings additionally allowed us to isolate and investigate batch effects, i.e. inter-experimental variations resulting in systematic differences in response speed. As a proof of principle, we developed a simple model that disentangles biological from experimental causes of variability and allowed us to recover the characteristic gradient of response speeds across the IPL with higher precision than before. Our new framework will make it possible to study the computations performed in the central synaptic layer of the retina more efficiently.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Mar 10, 2020
- Source ID
- 10.1038/s41598-020-60214-z
Entities
People
- Alexander Ecker
- André Maia Chagas
- Christian Behrens
- Dario A. Protti
- David A. Klindt
- Deniz Dalkara
- Katrin Franke
- Klaudia P. Szatko
- Luke Rogerson
- Matthias Bethge
- Philipp Berens
- Thomas Euler
- Timm Schubert
- Zhijian Zhao
Organizations
- Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
- Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space
- German Research Foundation
- Horizon 2020
- Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity
- Max Planck Society