PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - David J. Margolis
AU  - Gregory Newkirk
AU  - Thomas Euler
AU  - Peter B. Detwiler
TI  - Functional Stability of Retinal Ganglion Cells after Degeneration-Induced Changes in Synaptic Input
AID  - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1533-08.2008
DP  - 2008 Jun 18
TA  - The Journal of Neuroscience
PG  - 6526--6536
VI  - 28
IP  - 25
4099  - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/28/25/6526.short
4100  - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/28/25/6526.full
SO  - J. Neurosci.2008 Jun 18; 28
AB  - Glutamate released from photoreceptors controls the activity and output of parallel pathways in the retina. When photoreceptors die because of degenerative diseases, surviving retinal networks are left without their major source of input, but little is known about how photoreceptor loss affects ongoing synaptic activity and retinal output. Here, we use patch-clamp recording and two-photon microscopy to investigate morphological and physiological properties of identified types of ON and OFF retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) in the adult (36–210 d old) retinal degeneration rd-1/rd-1 mouse. We find that strong rhythmic synaptic input drives ongoing oscillatory spike activity in both ON and OFF RGCs at a fundamental “beating” frequency of ∼10 Hz. Despite this aberrant activity, ON and OFF cells maintain their characteristic dendritic stratification, intrinsic firing properties, including rebound firing in OFF cells, balance of synaptic excitation and inhibition, and dendritic calcium signaling. Thus, RGCs are inherently stable during degeneration-induced retinal activity.