Document Detail


Spontaneous activity in developing turtle retinal ganglion cells: statistical analysis.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  10824677     Owner:  NLM     Status:  MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
We report on the temporal properties of the spontaneous bursts of activity in the developing turtle retina. Quantitative statistical criteria were used to detect, cluster, and analyze the temporal properties of the bursts. The interburst interval, duration, firing rate, and number of spikes per burst varied widely among cells and from burst to burst in a single cell. Part of this variability was due to the positive correlation between a burst's duration and the interburst interval preceding that burst. This correlation indicated the influence of a refractory period on the bursts' properties. Further evidence of such a refractoriness came from the bursts' auto-covariance function, which gives the tendency of a spike to occur a given amount of time after another spike. This function showed a positive phase (between approximately 10 ms and 10 s) followed by a negative one (between 10 s and more than 100 s), suggestive of burst refractoriness. The bursts seemed to be propagating from cell to cell, because there was a long (symmetrically distributed) delay between the activation of two neighbor cells (median absolute delay = 2.3 s). However, the activity often failed to propagate from one cell to the other (median safety factor = 0.59). The number of spikes per burst in neighbor cells was statistically positively correlated, indicating that the activity in the two cells was driven by the same excitatory process. At least two factors contribute to the excitability during bursts, because the positive phase of the cross-covariance function (similar to auto-covariance but for two cells) had a temporally asymmetric fast component (1-3 ms) followed by a temporally symmetric slow component (1 ms to 10 s).
Authors:
N M Grzywacz; E Sernagor
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Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.    
Journal Detail:
Title:  Visual neuroscience     Volume:  17     ISSN:  0952-5238     ISO Abbreviation:  Vis. Neurosci.     Publication Date:    2000 Mar-Apr
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2000-07-18     Completed Date:  2000-07-18     Revised Date:  2007-11-14    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  8809466     Medline TA:  Vis Neurosci     Country:  ENGLAND    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  229-41     Citation Subset:  IM    
Affiliation:
Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, San Francisco, CA 94115-1813, USA. nmg@skivs.ski.org
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MeSH Terms
Descriptor/Qualifier:
Animals
Cluster Analysis
Electrophysiology
Microelectrodes
Retinal Ganglion Cells / physiology*
Turtles / embryology,  physiology*
Grant Support
ID/Acronym/Agency:
EY08921/EY/NEI NIH HHS; EY10600/EY/NEI NIH HHS; EY11170/EY/NEI NIH HHS

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine


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