title: Spontaneous activity of morphologically identified ganglion cells in the developing ferret retina.
abstract: Whole-cell patch-clamp recordings were made from morphologically identified ganglion cells in the intact retina of developing ferrets. As early as 3 d after birth, all ganglion cells exhibited bursts of spontaneous activity, with the interval between bursts gradually decreasing with maturity. By 2 weeks after birth, ganglion cells could be morphologically differentiated into three major classes (alpha, beta, and gamma), and at this time each cell class was characterized by a distinct pattern of spontaneous activity. Dual patch-clamp recordings from pairs of neighboring cells revealed that cells of all morphological classes burst in a coordinated manner, regardless of cell type. These observations suggest that a common mechanism underlies the bursting patterns exhibited by all ganglion cell classes, and that class-specific firing patterns emerge coincident with retinal ganglion cell morphological differentiation.
authors.affiliation: Section of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior, Division of Biological Sciences, School of Medicine, University of California, Davis, California 95616, USA. lcliets@ucdavis.edu
authors.forename: Lauren C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Liets
authors.forename: Bruno A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Olshausen
authors.forename: Guo-Yong
authors.initials: GY
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Leo M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Chalupa
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials; D000818:Animals; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D005289:Ferrets; D007700:Kinetics; D018408:Patch-Clamp Techniques; D012160:Retina / Q000254:growth & development*; D012165:Retinal Ganglion Cells / Q000145:classification / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*