title: The functional diversity of retinal ganglion cells in the mouse.
abstract: In the vertebrate visual system, all output of the retina is carried by retinal ganglion cells. Each type encodes distinct visual features in parallel for transmission to the brain. How many such 'output channels' exist and what each encodes are areas of intense debate. In the mouse, anatomical estimates range from 15 to 20 channels, and only a handful are functionally understood. By combining two-photon calcium imaging to obtain dense retinal recordings and unsupervised clustering of the resulting sample of more than 11,000 cells, here we show that the mouse retina harbours substantially more than 30 functional output channels. These include all known and several new ganglion cell types, as verified by genetic and anatomical criteria. Therefore, information channels from the mouse eye to the mouse brain are considerably more diverse than shown thus far by anatomical studies, suggesting an encoding strategy resembling that used in state-of-the-art artificial vision systems.
authors.affiliation: Bernstein Centre for Computational Neuroscience, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.|Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.|Institute for Ophthalmic Research, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Baden
authors.affiliation: Bernstein Centre for Computational Neuroscience, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.|Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.|Institute for Ophthalmic Research, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.|Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030, USA.|Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Philipp
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Berens
authors.affiliation: Bernstein Centre for Computational Neuroscience, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.|Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.|Institute for Ophthalmic Research, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.|Graduate Training Centre of Neuroscience, University of Tübingen, 72074 Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Katrin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Franke
authors.affiliation: Bernstein Centre for Computational Neuroscience, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.|Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.|Institute for Ophthalmic Research, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.|Graduate Training Centre of Neuroscience, University of Tübingen, 72074 Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Miroslav
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Román Rosón
authors.affiliation: Bernstein Centre for Computational Neuroscience, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.|Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.|Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.|Max Planck Institute of Biological Cybernetics, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bethge
authors.affiliation: Bernstein Centre for Computational Neuroscience, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.|Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.|Institute for Ophthalmic Research, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Euler
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000166:cytology; D020013:Calcium Signaling; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008957:Models, Genetic; D011336:Probability; D012165:Retinal Ganglion Cells / Q000145:classification* / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*