GABAergic amacrine cells balance biased chromatic information in the mouse retina

Maria M Korympidou; Sarah Strauss; Timm Schubert; Katrin Franke; Philipp Berens; Thomas Euler; Anna L Vlasits

doi:10.1016/j.celrep.2024.114953

GABAergic amacrine cells balance biased chromatic information in the mouse retina

Cell Rep. 2024 Nov 6;43(11):114953. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2024.114953. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Maria M Korympidou¹, Sarah Strauss², Timm Schubert³, Katrin Franke⁴, Philipp Berens⁵, Thomas Euler⁶, Anna L Vlasits⁷

Affiliations

¹ Institute for Ophthalmic Research, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany; Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany; Graduate Training Centre of Neuroscience (GTC), University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.
² Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany; Graduate Training Centre of Neuroscience (GTC), University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany; Hertie Institute for AI in Brain Health, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.
³ Institute for Ophthalmic Research, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany; Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.
⁴ Department of Ophthalmology, Byers Eye Institute, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94303, USA.
⁵ Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany; Hertie Institute for AI in Brain Health, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany; Tübingen AI Center, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.
⁶ Institute for Ophthalmic Research, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany; Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany. Electronic address: [email protected].
⁷ Institute for Ophthalmic Research, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany; Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany; Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, University of Illinois, Chicago, IL 60603, USA. Electronic address: [email protected].

PMID: 39509269
DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2024.114953

Abstract

The retina extracts chromatic information present in an animal's environment. How this information is processed in the retina is not well understood. In the mouse, chromatic information is not collected equally throughout the retina. Green and UV signals are primarily detected in the dorsal and ventral retina, respectively. However, at the output of the retina, chromatic tuning is more mixed throughout the retina. This suggests that lateral processing by inhibitory amacrine cells shapes chromatic information at the retinal output. We systematically surveyed the chromatic responses of dendritic processes of the 40+ GABAergic amacrine cell types. We identified 25 functional types with distinct chromatic and achromatic properties. We used pharmacology and a biologically inspired deep learning model to explore how inhibition and excitation shape the properties of functional types. Our data suggest that amacrine cells balance the biased spectral tuning of excitation, thereby supporting diversity of chromatic information at the retinal output.

Keywords: CP: Neuroscience; amacrine cells; bipolar cells; chromatic processing; color vision; deep learning model; dendrites; inhibition; mouse; receptive field; retina.