en-face-cryosectioning-mouse-retina-for-high-dimensional-spatial

<em>En face</em> Cryosectioning of Mouse Retina for High-dimensional Spatial Molecular Analysis

The complex laminar structure of the retina presents significant challenges for comprehensive spatial molecular mapping. Current techniques for ...

University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center

Antagonistic interactions between center and surround receptive field (RF) components lie at the heart of the computations performed in the visual system. Circularly symmetric center-surround RFs are thought to enhance responses to spatial contrasts (i.e., edges), but how visual edges affect motion processing is unclear. Here, we addressed this question in retinal bipolar cells, the first visual neuron with classic center-surround interactions. We found that bipolar glutamate release emphasizes objects that emerge in the RF; their responses to continuous motion are smaller, slower, and cannot be predicted by signals elicited by stationary stimuli. In our hands, the alteration in signal dynamics induced by novel objects was more pronounced than edge enhancement and could be explained by priming of RF surround during continuous motion. These findings echo the salience of human visual perception and demonstrate an unappreciated capacity of the center-surround architecture to facilitate novel object detection and dynamic signal representation.

Classical center-surround receptive fields facilitate novel object detection in retinal bipolar cells.

Retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) transmit visual information from the eye to the brain. In mice, several RGC subtypes show nonuniform spatial distributions, potentially mediating specific visual functions. However, the full extent of RGC specialization remains unknown. Here, we used en-face cryosectioning, spatial transcriptomics, and machine learning to map the spatial distribution of all RGC subtypes identified in previous single-cell studies. While two-thirds of RGC subtypes were evenly distributed, others showed strong biases toward ventral or dorso-temporal regions associated with sky vision and the area retinae temporalis (ART), the predicted homolog of the area centralis. Additionally, we observed unexpected spatial variation in gene expression within several subtypes along the dorso-ventral axis or within vs. outside the ART, independent of RGC density profiles. Finally, we found limited correlations between the gene profiles of the ART and the primate macula, suggesting divergent specialization between the mouse and primate central vision.

Article	Year
Classical center-surround receptive fields facilitate novel object detection in retinal bipolar cells. Nature communications\| PubMed ID: 36163249	2022
A Complete Spatial Map of Mouse Retinal Ganglion Cells Reveals Density and Gene Expression Specializations. bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology\| PubMed ID: 39990332	2025

Alon Poleg-Polsky

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