Details

Speaker:
Prof. Robert Hindges, MRC Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Centre for Developmental Neurobiology, Kings College London

Visual information is already processed in the retina before it is transmitted to higher visual centres in the brain. This includes the extraction of salient features from visual scenes, such as motion directionality or contrast, through neurons belonging to distinct neural circuits. Some retinal neurons are tuned to the orientation of elongated visual stimuli. Such ‘orientation-selective’ neurons are present in the retinae of most, if not all, vertebrate species analysed to date, with species-specific differences in frequency and degree of tuning. Our laboratory identified in zebrafish a specific subset of amacrine cells underlying the generation of orientation selectivity. I will present data on the nature of these cells and their structural and functional development in order to control the establishment of orientation-specific circuits in the zebrafish retina.