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Information coding in retinal ganglion cells

YAN Ru-Jia, GONG Hai-Qing, ZHANG Pu-Ming, LIANG Pei-Ji^*

School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China

Abstract

In vertebrate visual system, retina is the first stage for visual information processing. Retinal ganglion cells are the only output neurons of the retina, and their firing activities are dependent on visual stimuli. Retinal ganglion cells can effectively encode visual information via various manners, such as firing rate, temporal structure of spike trains, and concerted activity, etc. Adaptation is one of the basic characteristics of the nervous system, which enables retinal neurons to encode stimuli under a wide variety of natural conditions with limited range in their output. This article reviews the recent studies focused on the coding properties and adaptation of retinal ganglion cells. Relevant issues about dynamical adjustment of coding strategies of retinal ganglion cells in response to different visual stimulation, as well as physiological property and function of adaptation are discussed.

Key words: retinal ganglion cell; information coding; adaptation

Received: 2016-02-23　　Accepted: 2016-06-19

Corresponding author: 梁培基　　E-mail: pjliang@sjtu.edu.cn

Citing This Article：

YAN Ru-Jia, GONG Hai-Qing, ZHANG Pu-Ming, LIANG Pei-Ji. Information coding in retinal ganglion cells. Acta Physiol Sin 2016; 68 (4): 414-422 (in Chinese with English abstract).