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Variability of responses of cat retinal ganglion cells

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2009

Michael W. Levine ,
Brian G. Cleland  and
Roger P. Zimmerman
Michael W. Levine
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and the Commitee on Neuroscience, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago
Brian G. Cleland
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Roger P. Zimmerman
Affiliation:
Department of Neurological Sciences and Physiology and Division of Cell Biology, Rush University, Chicago
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Abstract

Previous studies of the varibility of firing of retinal ganglion cells have led to apparently contradictory conclusions. To a first approximation, the variance of rate of maintained discharges of ganglion cells in cat is independent of the mean firing rate. On the other hand, the variability of responses to abrupt changes in lighting of ganglion cells in goldfish increascs with increasing firing rate. To examine whether the difference is due to differences between species, we examined the variablility of responses of cat ganglion cells, and find it similar to that of goldfish ganglion cells. The variance of rate of ganglion cells is neither independent of mean rate, as might be expected from maintained dischargs, nor directly proportional to the mean rate, as it is for cat cortical cells. Rather, there is a monlinear relationship between varience of rate and mean rate.

Keywords

Retinal ganglion cellsCat retinaVariance of rateVariability of responses
Type
Short Communication
Information
Visual Neuroscience , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , March 1992 , pp. 277 - 279
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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