Summary
Intracellular potential recording in combination with a histological technique of cell identification and localization of the recording site was used to get some results about information processing properties of an insect retina on the cellular level.
Visual cells of the long type and the short type, as well as some second order neurons were studied. In all the cell types we studied, the axonal conduction of information was not accomplished by impulse volleys but rather by graded potentials. The visual cells respond to a light stimulus by depolarizing potentials, the second order neurons by hyperpolarizing potentials. The visual responses of the various cell types were contrasted with each other at identical stimulus situations.
By contrasting the L2-potentials, exited by sine-wave stimulation, with the presynaptic R1–6-potentials, we studied the transducing property of the synapse.
All cell types studied, exhibited different visual fields. The different visual fields of R1–6-cells and L1–2-cells give rise to claim for a lateral inhibition within the first optic ganglion of the fly's eye.
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This work was supported by a grant from Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.
We are most grateful to Professor H. Autrum for his courtesy and encouragement troughout this work and for revising the manuscript. We also would like to thank Dr. N. J. Strausfeld for revising the English text.
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Järvilehto, M., Zettler, F. Electrophysiological-histological studies on some functional properties of visual cells and second order neurons of an insect retina. Z.Zellforsch 136, 291–306 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00307446
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00307446