Structural and functional diversity of a dense sample of retinal ganglion cells

Abstract

To aid understanding of retinal structure and function, we present as an online resource the dendritic arbors and visual responses of ganglion cells in a single patch of mouse retina. We divide the inner plexiform layer, which contains the dendritic arbors of ganglion cells, into four sublaminae defined by a purely anatomical principle of arbor segregation. The sublaminae serve as the starting point for a hierarchical clustering of our ganglion cells. We propose and apply a quantitative criterion for validating a cluster as a ganglion cell type: the aggregate neurite density of a type should be approximately uniform (“density conservation”). Finally, we find that ganglion cells arborizing in the inner marginal sublamina of the inner plexi-form layer exhibit significantly more sustained visual responses on average.