TY - JOUR T1 - Prenatal development of gabaergic, glycinergic, and dopaminergic neurons in the rabbit retina JF - The Journal of Neuroscience JO - J. Neurosci. SP - 1623 LP - 1632 DO - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.02-11-01623.1982 VL - 2 IS - 11 AU - SC Fung AU - YC Kong AU - DM Lam Y1 - 1982/11/01 UR - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/2/11/1623.abstract N2 - The main findings from our studies on the emergence and maturation of neurotransmitter systems in the rabbit retina are that, during normal development: (1) the commitments for certain neurons to become GABAergic, glycinergic, or dopaminergic are made prenatally; the maturation of these neurons, however, occurs postnatally; (2) specific accumulations of exogenously supplied transmitters by presumed retinal neurons were first observed autoradiographically around embryonic day 22 (E22) for gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), E25 for glycine, and E27 for dopamine, suggesting that putative GABAergic, glycinergic, and dopaminergic neurons are determined phenotypically at least by these days; (3) based upon the three transmitter-specific properties--uptake, synthesis, and release--the uptake property is generally the first to emerge, while the appearance of the other properties follows a precise and distinct temporal pattern for each of the transmitters studied; (4) for GABAergic and glycinergic systems, the emergence of K+-stimulated, Ca2+-dependent release mechanisms occurs many days after the first appearance of the uptake properties; in contrast, the mechanisms for dopamine uptake and release emerge at about the same time; and (5) by our criteria, putative GABAergic and glycinergic amacrine cells are mature between postnatal day 10 (P10) and P12, around the time when the eyes first open and direction-selective ganglion cells can first be recorded; however, the dopaminergic neurons probably are not mature until about P24. ER -