title: Dendritic spread and functional coverage of starburst amacrine cells.
abstract: The network of starburst amacrine cells plays a fundamental role in the neural circuitry underlying directional selectivity within the retina. Individual sectors of the starburst dendritic field are directionally selective by virtue of a mutually inhibitory relationship between starburst amacrine cells with overlapping dendrites. These features of the starburst amacrine cell network suggest that starburst cells regulate their dendritic overlap to ensure a uniform coverage of the retinal surface. The present study has compared the dendritic morphology of starburst amacrine cells in two different strains of mice that differ in starburst amacrine cell number. The A/J (A) strain contains about one-quarter fewer starburst amacrine cells than does the C57BL/6J (B6) strain, although the mosaics of starburst amacrine cells in both strains are comparably patterned. Dendritic field size, however, does not compensate for the difference in density, the A strain having a slightly smaller dendritic field relative to the B6 strain, yielding a significantly larger dendritic coverage factor for individual cells in the B6 strain. The area of the distal (output) annulus of the dendritic field occupies a comparable proportion of the overall field area in the two strains, but overlapping annuli establish a finer meshwork of co-fasciculating processes in the B6 strain. These results would suggest that the architecture of the dendritic network, rather than the overall size of the dendritic field, is dependent on the density of starburst amacrine cells.
authors.affiliation: Neuroscience Research Institute and Department of Psychology, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA.
authors.forename: Patrick W
authors.initials: PW
authors.lastname: Keeley
authors.forename: Irene E
authors.initials: IE
authors.lastname: Whitney
authors.forename: Mary A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Raven
authors.forename: Benjamin E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Reese
mesh_terms: D025042:Amacrine Cells / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000648:ultrastructure; D000818:Animals; D002452:Cell Count; D002454:Cell Differentiation / Q000502:physiology; D048430:Cell Shape / Q000502:physiology; D002795:Choline O-Acetyltransferase / Q000378:metabolism; D003712:Dendrites; D051379:Mice; D008805:Mice, Inbred A / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D009434:Neural Pathways; D012165:Retinal Ganglion Cells / Q000166:cytology; D013045:Species Specificity; D050494:Vesicular Acetylcholine Transport Proteins / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: C493460:Slc18a3 protein, mouse; D050494:Vesicular Acetylcholine Transport Proteins; D002795:Choline O-Acetyltransferase