PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Sara S. Patterson
AU  - Briyana N. Bembry
AU  - Marcus A. Mazzeferri
AU  - Maureen Neitz
AU  - Fred Rieke
AU  - Robijanto Soetedjo
AU  - Jay Neitz
TI  - Conserved Circuits for Direction Selectivity in the Primate Retina
AID  - 10.1101/2021.07.21.453225
DP  - 2021 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2021.07.21.453225
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/07/22/2021.07.21.453225.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/07/22/2021.07.21.453225.full
AB  - The detection of motion direction is a fundamental visual function and a classic model for neural computation1,2. In the non-primate mammalian retina, direction selectivity arises in starburst amacrine cell (SAC) dendrites, which provide selective inhibition to ON and ON-OFF direction selective retinal ganglion cells (dsRGCs)3,4. While SACs are present in primates5, their connectivity is unknown and the existence of primate dsRGCs remains an open question. Here we present a connectomic reconstruction of the primate ON SAC circuit from a serial electron microscopy volume of macaque central retina. We show that the structural basis for the SAC’s ability to compute and confer directional selectivity on post-synaptic RGCs6 is conserved in primates and that SACs selectively target a single ganglion cell type, a candidate homolog to the mammalian ON-sustained dsRGCs that project to the accessory optic system and contribute to gaze-stabilizing reflexes7,8. These results indicate that the capacity to compute motion direction is present in the retina, far earlier in the primate visual system than classically thought, and they shed light on the distinguishing features of primate motion processing by revealing the extent to which ancestral motion circuits are conserved.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.