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Retinal ganglion cells

Brian Wandell edited this page Jul 29, 2017 · 13 revisions

Retinal ganglion cells

The retinal ganglion cell layer (@rgcLayer) is a subclass of the cell layer (@cellLayer) class. The rgc layer organizes a collection of @rgcMosaic objects. The rgc layer object stores properties that are common to all of the rgc mosaics. The rgc layer has a visualization method (@rgcLayer.window).

The rgcMosaic object represents a mosaic of RGCs of a specific cell type. The rgcMosaic object takes one or more bipolar objects as input and, using the compute method (@rgcMosaic.compute), converts these inputs into the linear and spiking responses of each cell in the rgc mosaic.

RGC mosaics

@rgcMosaic

RGC mosaic computations

The user may choose from several computational models:

  • The linear-nonlinear-Poisson (LNP) model: see Chichilnisky and Kalmar, "Functional asymmetries in ON and OFF ganglion cells of primate retina." The Journal of Neuroscience 22.7 (2002); and Pillow, Paninski, Uzzell, Simoncelli & Chichilnisky, J. Neurosci (2005).

  • The coupled generalized linear model (GLM): see Pillow, Shlens, Paninski, Sher, Litke, Chichilnisky & Simoncelli, "Spatio-temporal correlations and visual signaling in a complete neuronal population." Nature 454.7207 (2008).

All of the computational models produce a linear response, and the LNP and GLM generate spikes over a number of trials as output. The outputs can be used for a computational observer to discriminate between stimuli, and in the near future will feed into models of the LGN and V1.

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