Molecular Biology of Retinal Ganglion Cells

Molecular biology of retinal ganglion cells.

Retinal ganglion cells are the output neurons that encode and transmit information from the eye to the brain. Their diverse physiologic and anatomic properties have been intensively studied and appear to account well for a number of psychophysical phenomena such as lateral inhibition and chromatic opponency. In this paper, we summarize our current view of retinal ganglion cell properties and po...

Molecular phenotyping of retinal ganglion cells.

Classifying all of the ganglion cells in the mammalian retina has long been a goal of anatomists, physiologists, and cell biologists. The rabbit retinal ganglion cell layer was phenotyped using intrinsic small molecule signals (aspartate, glutamate, glycine, glutamine, GABA, and taurine) and glutamate receptor-gated 1-amino-4-guanidobutane excitation signals as the clustering dimensions for for...

Molecular basis of glutamate toxicity in retinal ganglion cells

Loss of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) is a hallmark of many ophthalmic diseases including glaucoma, retinal ischemia due to central artery occlusion, anterior ischemic optic neuropathy and may be significant in optic neuritis, optic nerve trauma, and AIDS. Recent research indicates that neurotoxicity is caused by excessive stimulation of receptors for excitatory amino acids (EAAs). In particula...

Retinal Ganglion Cells

Segments from adult fish and rat retinae were explanted on myelinmarker expressing oligodendrocytes derived from the regenerating goldfish optic nerve. Fish axons grew in high density and even rat retinal axons regenerated to considerable length on the surface of the fish oligodendrocytes, suggesting that this type of fish glia has axon-growth promoting surface components that exert their influ...

Retinal Ganglion Cells