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Recording spikes from a large fraction of the ganglion cells in a retinal patch

Nature Neuroscience volume 7, pages 1155–1162 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

To understand a neural circuit completely requires simultaneous recording from most of the neurons in that circuit. Here we report recording and spike sorting techniques that enable us to record from all or nearly all of the ganglion cells in a patch of the retina. With a dense multi-electrode array, each ganglion cell produces a unique pattern of activity on many electrodes when it fires an action potential. Signals from all of the electrodes are combined with an iterative spike sorting algorithm to resolve ambiguities arising from overlapping spike waveforms. We verify that we are recording from a large fraction of ganglion cells over the array by labeling the ganglion cells with a retrogradely transported dye and by comparing the number of labeled and recorded cells. Using these methods, we show that about 60 receptive fields of ganglion cells cover each point in visual space in the salamander, consistent with anatomical findings.

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Figure 1: The dense array.
Figure 2: Identifying spike templates.
Figure 3: Matching templates to the raw data.
Figure 4: Evaluating the method.
Figure 5: Axonal versus somatic spikes.
Figure 6: Effects of splitting one cell into two templates.
Figure 7: Example of two nearby ganglion cells.
Figure 8: Receptive field sizes of ganglion cells.

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Acknowledgements

We thank P. Sterling, D. Tank, A. Fairhall and S. Shoham for discussion; P. Bisher for help with confocal imaging and electron microscopy; and R. Harris and G. Lewen for assistance with data acquisition. This work was supported by a grant from the National Eye Institute (R01 EY14196) and a Pew Scholars Award to M.J.B.

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  1. Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, 08544, New Jersey, USA

    Ronen Segev, Joe Goodhouse, Jason Puchalla & Michael J Berry II

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  1. Ronen Segev
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Correspondence to Michael J Berry II.

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Segev, R., Goodhouse, J., Puchalla, J. et al. Recording spikes from a large fraction of the ganglion cells in a retinal patch. Nat Neurosci 7, 1155–1162 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1323

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