The effect of an intravitreal injection of NMDA on the expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in retinal ganglion cells was investigated in rats. Forty-eight hours after intravitreal injection of NMDA retinal ganglion cell BDNF immunoreactivity was practically obliterated, as was the choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) immunoreactivity associated with a subset of amacrine cells. Ho...

Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON) is a mitochondrial disease caused by mutations in DNA affecting the respiratory complex I and leading to death of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) [1]. It characterized sudden onset usually severe bilateral loss central vision, predominantly young men [2]. The risk vision 50% among 10% women who carry LHON primary [3]. We report an atypic case 11 years old ...

A fully automated and robust method was developed to quantify β-III-tubulin-stained retinal ganglion cells, combining computational recognition of individual cells by CellProfiler and a machine-learning tool to teach phenotypic classification of the retinal ganglion cells by CellProfiler Analyst. In animal models of glaucoma, quantification of immunolabeled retinal ganglion cells is currently p...

In 1993, based on my original 1981 research on serial sections of human embryos, I proposed that vision may have three components, rather than just 2—the rods and cones. I termed the third component nonvisual retinal ganglion cells (NVRGCs)(ipRGCs: intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells NVRGCs: nonvisual retinal ganglion cells, PACAP: pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypept...

1 2 The development of the visual system in anamniotic vertebrates is a continual process, 3 allowing for ontogenetic changes in retinal topography and spatial resolving power. We 4 examine the number and distribution of retinal ganglion cells in wholemounted retinae 5 throughout the protracted embryonic development (approx. five months) of a chondrichthyan, 6 the brown banded bamboo shark, Chi...

PURPOSE The sigma-1 receptor (σR1), a ligand-operated chaperone, has been inferred to be neuroprotective in previous studies using σR1 ligands. The σR1 specificity of the protective function, however, has yet to be firmly established, due to the existence of non-σR1 targets of the ligands. Here, we used the σR1-knockout mouse (Sigmar1(-/-)) to demonstrate unambiguously the role of the σR1 in pr...

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...

Epiretinal prostheses for treating blindness activate axon bundles, causing large, arc-shaped visual percepts that limit the quality of artificial vision. Improving the function of epiretinal prostheses therefore requires understanding and avoiding axon bundle activation. This study introduces a method to detect axon bundle activation on the basis of its electrical signature and uses the method...

Unlike many other vertebrates, a healthy mammalian retina does not grow throughout life and lacks a ciliary margin zone capable of actively generating new neurons. The isolation of stem-like cells from the ciliary epithelium has led to speculation that the mammalian retina and/or surrounding tissues may retain neurogenic potential capable of responding to retinal damage. Using genetically alter...

Exclusion of the transcription factor Max from the nucleus of retinal ganglion cells is an early, caspase-independent event of programmed cell death following damage to the optic axons. To test whether the loss of nuclear Max leads to a reduction in neuroprotection, we developed a procedure to overexpress Max protein in rat retinal tissue in vivo. A recombinant adeno-associated viral vector (rA...