Multiplexed computations in retinal ganglion cells of a single type
2017-12-06 | journal article
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- Authors
- Deny, Stéphane; Ferrari, Ulisse; Macé, Emilie ; Yger, Pierre; Caplette, Romain; Picaud, Serge; Tkačik, Gašper; Marre, Olivier
- Abstract
- In the early visual system, cells of the same type perform the same computation in different places of the visual field. How these cells code together a complex visual scene is unclear. A common assumption is that cells of a single-type extract a single-stimulus feature to form a feature map, but this has rarely been observed directly. Using large-scale recordings in the rat retina, we show that a homogeneous population of fast OFF ganglion cells simultaneously encodes two radically different features of a visual scene. Cells close to a moving object code quasilinearly for its position, while distant cells remain largely invariant to the object's position and, instead, respond nonlinearly to changes in the object's speed. We develop a quantitative model that accounts for this effect and identify a disinhibitory circuit that mediates it. Ganglion cells of a single type thus do not code for one, but two features simultaneously. This richer, flexible neural map might also be present in other sensory systems.
- Issue Date
- 6-December-2017
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- eISSN
- 2041-1723
- Language
- English