Types of Retinal Ganglion Cells and Their Distribution

Abstract

Only the common types of retinal ganglion cells which have an incidence of more than about 1% of electrophysiologically determined samples will be discussed here in depth. There are very rare cells, which deviate from the following description, e.g., showing indications of various trichromatic inputs (De Monasterio and Gouras 1975, De Monasterio et al. 1975a) which are still not well understood (Wooten and Werner 1979); it is questionable whether cells of such rarity can play a major functional role in the visual system. In Chap. 3.4 it will be demonstrated that cells showing rather striking variations in their spectral sensitivity can be easily assigned to one common group, taking into account retinal eccentricity and varying dominance of individual cone mechanisms. Blue-sensitive ganglion cells show a series of interesting properties, separately discussed in Chapter 4. For a comparison of the incidence of certain groups of color-opponent cells in several studies from different laboratories see Table 1 in the review article of Gouras and Zrenner (1981b).