TY - JOUR
T1 - Fine spatial information represented in a population of retinal ganglion cells
AU - Soo, Frederick S.
AU - Schwartz, Gregory W.
AU - Sadeghi, Kolia
AU - Berry, Michael J.
PY - 2011/2/9
Y1 - 2011/2/9
N2 - Detailed measurement of ganglion cell receptive fields often reveals significant deviations from a smooth, Gaussian profile. We studied the effect of these irregularities on the representation of fine spatial information in the retina. We recorded from nearby clusters of ganglion cells, testing their ability to determine the location of small flashed spots, and we compared the results to the prediction of a Gaussian receptive field model derived from reverse correlation. Despite considerable receptive field overlap, almost all ganglion cell pairs signaled nearly independently. For groups of five cells with highly overlapping receptive fields, the measured light-evoked currents encoded ∼33% more information than predicted by the Gaussian receptive field model. Including measured local irregularities in the receptive field model increased performance to the level observed experimentally. These results suggest that instead of being an unavoidable defect, irregularities may be a positive design feature of population neural codes. Copyright
AB - Detailed measurement of ganglion cell receptive fields often reveals significant deviations from a smooth, Gaussian profile. We studied the effect of these irregularities on the representation of fine spatial information in the retina. We recorded from nearby clusters of ganglion cells, testing their ability to determine the location of small flashed spots, and we compared the results to the prediction of a Gaussian receptive field model derived from reverse correlation. Despite considerable receptive field overlap, almost all ganglion cell pairs signaled nearly independently. For groups of five cells with highly overlapping receptive fields, the measured light-evoked currents encoded ∼33% more information than predicted by the Gaussian receptive field model. Including measured local irregularities in the receptive field model increased performance to the level observed experimentally. These results suggest that instead of being an unavoidable defect, irregularities may be a positive design feature of population neural codes. Copyright
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U2 - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5129-10.2011
DO - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5129-10.2011
M3 - Article
C2 - 21307251
AN - SCOPUS:79951519137
SN - 0270-6474
VL - 31
SP - 2145
EP - 2155
JO - Journal of Neuroscience
JF - Journal of Neuroscience
IS - 6
ER -