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The Journal of Neuroscience, 2000, 20:RC56:1-6

RAPID COMMUNICATION
Differential Effects of Acetylcholine and Glutamate Blockade on the Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Retinal Waves

Evelyne Sernagor¹, Stephen J. Eglen², and Michael J. O'Donovan³

¹ Department of Child Health, The Medical School, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 4HH, United Kingdom, ² Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation, Division of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH8 9LW, United Kingdom, and ³ Laboratory of Neural Control, National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892

In the immature vertebrate retina, neighboring ganglion cells express spontaneous bursting activity (SBA), resulting in propagating waves. Previous studies suggest that the spontaneous bursting activity, asynchronous between the two eyes, controls the refinement of retinal ganglion cell projections to central visual targets. To understand how the patterns encoded within the waves contribute to the refinement of connections in the visual system, it is necessary to understand how wave propagation is regulated. We have used video-rate calcium imaging of spontaneous bursting activity in chick embryonic retinal ganglion cells to show how glutamatergic and cholinergic connections, two major excitatory synaptic drives involved in spontaneous bursting activity, contribute differentially to the spatiotemporal patterning of the waves. During partial blockade of cholinergic connections, cellular recruitment declines, leading to spatially more restricted waves. The velocity of wave propagation decreases during partial blockade of glutamatergic connections, but cellular recruitment remains substantially higher than during cholinergic blockade, thereby altering correlations in the activity of neighboring and distant ganglion cells. These findings show that cholinergic and glutamatergic connections exert different influences on the spatial and temporal properties of the waves, raising the possibility that they may play distinct roles during visual development.

Key words: retinal waves; spatiotemporal properties; chick embryo; glutamate; acetylcholine; visual system development; calcium imaging; retinal ganglion cells

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Copyright © 2000 Society for Neuroscience  0270-6474/00/$05.00/0

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