Simultaneous recording of mouse retinal ganglion cells during epiretinal or subretinal stimulation

Abstract

We compared response patterns and electrical receptive fields (ERF) of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) during epiretinal and subretinal electrical stimulation of isolated mouse retina. Retinas were stimulated with an array of 3200 independently controllable electrodes. Four response patterns were observed: a burst of activity immediately after stimulation (Type I cells, Vision Research (2008), 48, 1562–1568), delayed bursts beginning >25 ms after stimulation (Type II), a combination of both (Type III), and inhibition of ongoing spike activity. Type I responses were produced more often by epiretinal than subretinal stimulation whereas delayed and inhibitory responses were evoked more frequently by subretinal stimulation. Response latencies were significantly shorter with epiretinal than subretinal stimulation. These data suggest that subretinal stimulation is more effective at activating intraretinal circuits than epiretinal stimulation. There was no significant difference in charge threshold between subretinal and epiretinal configurations. ERFs were defined by the stimulating array surface area that successfully stimulated spikes in an RGC. ERFs were complex in shape, similar to receptive fields mapped with light. ERF areas were significantly smaller with subretinal than epiretinal stimulation. This may reflect the greater distance between stimulating electrodes and RGCs in the subretinal configuration. ERFs for immediate and delayed responses mapped within the same Type III cells differed in shape and size, consistent with different sites and mechanisms for generating these two response types.

Spike-triggered average electrical stimuli as input filters for bionic vision—a perspective

“…The use of noise stimuli allows powerful computational methods like the STA, spike-triggered covariance (STC), and linear-nonlinear-linear modeling to be used. Nevertheless, more traditional hand-mapping styles of estimating the eRF have also been used by a number of researchers recently (Sim et al 2014;Jepson et al 2014;Eickenscheidt et al 2012;Stett et al 2000;Stett et al 2007;Stutzki et al 2016). Combining spatial and temporal noise mapping has proven to be a difficult task, however two reports this year demonstrate that such multidimensional eRF mapping is possible (Ho et al 2018;Maturana et al 2018).…”

Unified selective sorting approach to analyse multi-electrode extracellular data

“…We use the same procedure as in refs 3 and 38 which involves approximating the stimuli response of each cell to an evoked frame on the display, so as to locate the spatial and temporal response fields of the retina. Figure 12 shows two conditions of the recovered spatio-temporal stimulus response of cell 4.…”

“…Henceforth, we chose to evaluate the algorithm using publicly accessible data sets36 as well as multi-electrode raw data from an amphibian retina638. The eye of an amphibian animal is enucleated and highly precision surgical equipments are used to isolate the lens of the eye and the cornea from its posterior half.…”

“…The recordings were performed by Meister et al 638. using a dense electrode array comprising of 61 electrodes.…”

A high-density microelectrode-tissue-microelectrode sandwich platform for application of retinal circuit study

“…In outer retinal degenerative diseases, such as the age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and hereditary Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), although photoreceptors are lost, numerous bipolar and retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) are still preserved [ 1 , 2 ]. Retinal prosthetic devices are being developed to bypass degenerated photoreceptors by directly or indirectly activating the surviving retinal neurons with electrical stimulation [ 3 ], which might improve vision in patients with retinal degenerative diseases. While these developments are very encouraging, many impediments still remain, for example, the electrophysiological processes that take place within the retina during the stimulation from these retinal prostheses are still not fully characterized.…”