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In this episode, Leslie tells us about on center, off surround ganglion cells. See how the configuration of rods with respect to the ganglion cell’s receptive field influences the type of response we get when those rods are stimulated.
Enjoy!
Transcript of Today’s Episode
Hello and welcome to another episode of Interactive Biology TV, where we’re making biology fun! My name is Leslie Samuel. In this episode, Episode 35, I’m going to talk about a specific type of ganglion cell that we call “on center, off surround ganglion cells.” Let’s get right into it.
I have a ledger over here that shows to the top left that R stands for rods, B stands for bipolar cell, H stands for horizontal cell, and G stands for ganglion cells. Here, I’m starting with a ganglion cell. We’ve look at the way rods connect to ganglion cells via bipolar cells, so I’m going to show that right now. So here we have 4 rods, and you can see those 4 rods here. Those 4 rods are making synapses with bipolar cells, and the bipolar cells are connecting to this ganglion cell. So this ganglion cell connects to 2 bipolar cells that connect to a total of 4 rods.
When we have this configuration with the rod directly connected to a bipolar cell that is directly connected to a ganglion cell, we call this the center of that ganglion cell’s receptive field. So this is the center of the receptive field, so any stimulation that results in activity in these rod cells is considered to be in the center of that ganglion cell’s receptive field.
Then we can have another configuration where we have rods that are connected to bipolar cells, so here we have a rod that’s connected to a bipolar cell that’s connected to a horizontal cell, and then it connects to the ganglion cell. So it goes via a bipolar cell, then a horizontal cell, and that eventually gets connected to this ganglion cell. Since it’s not directly from the bipolar to the ganglion cell, like it is over here, we call this not the center, but the surround. So any stimulation that stimulates these rods is considered to be in the surround of that ganglion cell’s receptive field.
So once again, these rods are considered to be in the center of this ganglion cell’s receptive field because they are connected directly via a bipolar cell to that ganglion cell. These rods, these two, the one over here and the one over here to the left are considered to be in the surround of that ganglion cell’s receptive field because they don’t go directly from the bipolar cell to the ganglion cell. They go via a horizontal cell.
Now, if this ganglion cell is considered to be an on center, off surround ganglion cell, that’s going to give a specific type of response. This is the response. I’m going to draw a graph over here that plots, as usual, the membrane potential versus time, and I’m going to draw one over here that does the same thing, time and membrane potential. We’re going to say that this is the center, this is when rods in the center of the receptive field are stimulated, and this is in the surround. We’re going to get 2 different responses. The response that I’m going to get here when there’s stimulation from the center is that we’re going to get an increase in the membrane potential, so it’s going to depolarize, and as we looked at with the ganglion cells before, we’re going to get a burst of nerve impulses in response to that stimulus. This is the on center response.
Now, if a rod gets stimulated in the surround of that ganglion cell’s receptive field, we’re going to get the exact opposite where we’re going to get a hyperpolarization, and then the membrane potential is going to come back up. In some cases, what we’re going to get here once this hyperpolarization happens and we get this rebound back to where the membrane potential was before, you’re going to get a burst of nerve impulses, but those nerve impulses are going to come after the stimulation. This is called a post-inhibitory rebound. So that’s basically saying it’s post-inhibition, so it’s after that inhibition happens, we’re going to get a rebound and some firing as soon as the stimulation stops.
Once again here, in the on center response, we get depolarization and a burst of nerve impulses in the ganglion cell. In the surround, we’re going to get an off surround response which is basically going to give us hyperpolarization, and then a post-inhibitory rebound. And you can see that those are 2 totally different responses, and the key ingredient here in that off surround response are these horizontal cells, because when they get stimulated by these bipolar cells, they are actually going to inhibit the ganglion cell that you see here. So this refers to the on center, off surround response of ganglion cells. This is a specific type of ganglion cells.
I just want to mention really quickly that we can also have off center, on surround ganglion cells, and if that were the case, we would get an off center response. In other words, if it’s stimulated in the center, we’d get this response over here with the post-inhibitory rebound, and if it’s stimulated in the surround of the ganglion cell’s receptive field, we’re going to get this burst of nerve impulses in response to the depolarization that happens.
That’s really all I want to talk about for this video. If you have any questions, as usual, go ahead and leave them in the comments section below, and I’d be happy to answer your questions. That’s it for now, and I’ll see you in the next video.
About The Author Leslie Samuel
Leslie Samuel is the creator of Interactive Biology. He created this site to help Make Biology Fun and has the goal of making this the biggest and best biology resource on the net.
17. February 2011 at 7:27 pm
Thank you so much for these vision videos!!!! This really helps to make sense out of the lectures we have….It’s great to come home from U of Windsor confused and watch these and things seem to come together!!!
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Leslie Reply:
February 17th, 2011 at 7:46 pm
Well, I’m glad you found it useful Kelly, and I’m also glad it’s all coming together. When you get that A, make sure to come back and let me know
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28. February 2011 at 12:03 am
Thanks so much for all the videos I find them very clear and helpful. Keep up the good work!
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Leslie Reply:
February 28th, 2011 at 6:01 am
Thank you for your comment Pete. I find it very encouraging
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19. April 2011 at 2:13 pm
thank u so much. i enjoyed all i watched and i have a question. we saw how the eye respond to light but how does it interpret that light signal according to the data or the informations it carries? i mean the wave length -the color- and the dimentions of that watched object. Biology is not the field of my study as i study power engineering but, i am interested in it and i watched your lectures from episode 1:35 but i need to know more about the eye. so may u please help me!
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Leslie Reply:
April 19th, 2011 at 10:55 pm
Great Question Maha,
Actually, the interpretation doesn’t happen in the eyes. It happens in the visual cortex which is in the brain. It takes all of the information that it gets from the Rods and Cones (and all the cells in between) and then combines it to form the full picture. That process is very complex and involves a number of different cells. Interestingly enough, they are called simple cells, complex cells, hypercomplex cells and others, and it would take many videos to explain how that all comes together. And with that, I’d probably be skipping a bunch of steps, lol.
Glad to know you are enjoying the videos
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18. May 2011 at 9:14 am
Thanks so much Leslie, I cannot even begin to describe how much that consolidated my knowledge along with your other videos I may now have a shot at passing this module!
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Lrsamuel Reply:
May 18th, 2011 at 3:00 pm
That’s great to hear. Glad to know it’s helping!
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25. September 2011 at 1:16 am
not that clear, sorry.
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10. October 2011 at 10:24 pm
Thank you for creating these videos and posting them on YouTube. For future videos, I’d like to suggest that you use the drawing tool a lot less – it takes too much time to write out words and draw graphs, and they can be sort of unclear when you do it that way. Otherwise, nice work!
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13. October 2011 at 10:47 am
Thanks for the great video, but how does the center surround antagonism aind in edge detection?
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Louisa Reply:
March 25th, 2012 at 8:39 am
Yes I’d like to know that too – is the function of OFF (inhibition) uniquely to identify direction of light? What is the reason of having OFF centres or surrounds?
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13. October 2011 at 6:42 pm
@PittDr All questions are answered in the Interactive Biology community forums from now on. Go to the website in the description and then visit the community. This is to make it as efficient as possible as we have multiple people over there to help answer questions.
All the best
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15. October 2011 at 10:40 am
does the input form the center receptive field go through horizontal cells when it is off-center on-surround?
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15. October 2011 at 8:40 pm
@thesameidiot All questions are answered in the Interactive Biology community forums from now on. Go to the website in the description and then visit the community. This is to make it as efficient as possible as we have multiple people over there to help answer questions.
All the best
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21. October 2011 at 9:54 pm
excellent videos! very clear and easy to understand
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22. October 2011 at 9:43 pm
@sharpiemarker99213 Glad you are enjoying them. Stay tuned for many more!
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22. October 2011 at 9:43 pm
Glad you are enjoying them. Stay tuned for many more!
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25. October 2011 at 3:49 am
shouldn’t off-centre bipolar cells synapse onto AMACRINE cells which then contact ganglion cells instead of horizontal cells?
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25. October 2011 at 5:33 am
Please do a video on Recurrent Inhibition!
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25. October 2011 at 5:33 am
These are excellent by the way – keep it up!
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26. October 2011 at 11:09 am
it really helps to understand the processes that happen in the retina! Thank you very much!
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26. October 2011 at 11:09 am
it really helps to understand the processes that happen in the retina! Thank you very much!
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30. October 2011 at 9:55 am
Sorry to brake it to you guys but the Visual transduction videos are wrong, horizontal cells connect photoreceptor (rods/cons) to each other, not bipolar cells and ganglion cells. This is not how receptor fields work.
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30. October 2011 at 10:01 am
Sorry to brake it to you guys but the Visual transduction videos are wrong, horizontal cells connect photoreceptor (rods/cons) to each other, not bipolar cells and ganglion cells. This is not how receptor fields work. At least not according to the literature I have read (Perves, Neuroscience), not according to Wikipedia either.
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30. October 2011 at 11:05 am
@virregribbe Sorry to break it to you, but it’s so complex that I’ve seen different descriptions in different books, so I picked one. Yeah, I know – It’s crazy. We don’t fully understand all aspects of this complex thing we call the human body. Makes you wonder . . .
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30. October 2011 at 11:05 am
Sorry to break it to you, but it’s so complex that I’ve seen different descriptions in different books, so I picked one. Yeah, I know – It’s crazy. We don’t fully understand all aspects of this complex thing we call the human body. Makes you wonder . . .
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1. November 2011 at 4:54 pm
@virregribbe luckily we have wikipedia to rely on, considering it’s so very reliable……. wikipedia is a joke. go buy yourself a new textbook smartass
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1. November 2011 at 4:54 pm
luckily we have wikipedia to rely on, considering it’s so very reliable……. wikipedia is a joke. go buy yourself a new textbook smartass
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2. November 2011 at 4:46 am
@karlydudar7 If you actually read my comment instead of trolling you would see that I’ve refereed to Purves Neuroscience fourth edition as well instead of trolling.
My point is I haven’t come in to contact with ANY description other then this video that states that horizontal cells connect anything other than receptor cells. If you can find any/have other reference please post it!
Good day Sir!
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2. November 2011 at 4:49 am
If you actually read my comment instead of trolling you would see that I’ve ref to Purves Neuroscience fourth edition as well instead of trolling.
My point is I haven’t come in to contact with ANY description other then this video that states that horizontal cells connect anything other than receptor cells. If you can find any/have other reference please post it!
Good day Sir!
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2. November 2011 at 4:49 am
If you actually read my comment instead of trolling you would see that I’ve ref to Purves Neuroscience fourth edition as well instead of trolling.
My point is I haven’t come in to contact with ANY description other then this video that states that horizontal cells connect anything other than receptor cells. If you can find any/have other reference please post it!
Good day Sir!
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7. November 2011 at 1:41 am
@InteractiveBiology The structure of the Retinal cells are well-known and there shouldn’t be any disparities between most authors. More reading and you’ll find consistencies in what @virregribbe mentioned.
H do not connect to G at all. B are the only link between Rods/Cones to the G. H are lateral processing neurons that connects between Rods/Cones. There is something called the Amacrine Cells that behaves just like H. You might want to redraw the diagram.
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11. November 2011 at 9:15 pm
Thanks brother, are you a west-indian?
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11. November 2011 at 9:44 pm
@shawnchong89 Very much welcome! Leslis is from St. Maarten
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11. November 2011 at 9:44 pm
Very much welcome! Leslis is from St. Maarten
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22. November 2011 at 8:16 pm
@InteractiveBiology I’ve heard that horizontal cells inhibit glutamate release from neighboring photoreceptors as well. Which book did you use as your source?
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22. November 2011 at 8:16 pm
I’ve heard that horizontal cells inhibit glutamate release from neighboring photoreceptors as well. Which book did you use as your source?
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23. November 2011 at 2:07 pm
@aykhk7 I don’t remember the textbook. It’s from notes I took in college. If your book says something different, go with it. My videos (like many textbooks), can have errors in it. Do your research and you’ll find the answer
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23. November 2011 at 2:07 pm
I don’t remember the textbook. It’s from notes I took in college. If your book says something different, go with it. My videos (like many textbooks), can have errors in it. Do your research and you’ll find the answer
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24. November 2011 at 11:44 am
This video is wrong.
I hope the author take this video down because it is misleading.
Please do your homework before you make the video.
The effort is good but if you teach the wrong things, it is worst than not teaching at all.
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16. January 2012 at 10:50 am
Awesome video! It’s just what I needed, and it clearly lines up with what is stated in my Costanzo BRS Physiology book, 3rd edition. Thanks for the visual explanation!
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20. February 2012 at 5:36 pm
This video lines up with pics on MIT, McGill, and Harvard’s websites. It also matches the pics in Gazzaniga’s psych science text (2009).
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1. March 2012 at 12:11 am
@virregribbe my professor has said that it’s not clear where they connect, many sources say many different things
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1. March 2012 at 12:11 am
my professor has said that it’s not clear where they connect, many sources say many different things
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19. March 2012 at 6:26 pm
how I can I describe the different ganglia cells in different parts of the visual processing?
I know they are at the eye level and in the cortex level.
Can you please describe its function and importance please?
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19. March 2012 at 10:26 pm
how I can I describe the different ganglia cells in different parts of the visual processing?
I know they are at the eye level and in the cortex level.
Can you please describe its function and importance please?
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17. April 2012 at 1:53 am
You confused me even more. What happened to amacrine cells, and none of my books have horizontal connection to ganglion man.
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24. April 2012 at 8:10 pm
Although its validity may be unclear, it has helped me get an overview of the concept, which I find confusing. Thanks!
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25. April 2012 at 2:01 pm
Very helpful! My lecturer did not explain this properly!!!
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30. April 2012 at 4:17 pm
you have to differentiate between on and off Bipolar cells to understand, why one Bipolar cell responds with a depolarisation and the other with a hyperpolarisation…
it’s like this… normal state of cone with no light is a membrane potential of about -30mV and a release of Glutamate. An incoming source of light causes, induced by the transmutation of cGMP to GMP, the closure if Na+ channels and so to a hyperpolarisation of the cone cell to about -50mV…
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30. April 2012 at 4:20 pm
…this leads to a lower influx of Ca2+ and lower release of Glutamate.
reaction (important part):
on-bipolarcell > lower efflux of K+ and that leads to a depolarisation
off-bipolarcell > lower influx of Na+ and that leads to a hyperpolarisation
so in your example the center is build by on-bipolarcell and the surrounding by off-bipolarcells.
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30. April 2012 at 4:20 pm
…this leads to a lower influx of Ca2+ and lower release of Glutamate.
reaction (important part):
on-bipolarcell > lower efflux of K+ and that leads to a depolarisation
off-bipolarcell > lower influx of Na+ and that leads to a hyperpolarisation
so in your example the center is build by on-bipolarcell and the surrounding by off-bipolarcells.
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30. April 2012 at 4:23 pm
so my point…. it’s not on / off ganglion cell… it’s on/off bipolar cell…
and together they build a On-ganglion cell (your example)
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16. May 2012 at 5:12 pm
We do actually understand a lot of how the body works in broad detail. Horizontal cells do not connect to ganglion cells. They connect to on or off bipolar cells which then synapse with ganglion cells. The activity of the bipolar cells results from input into their receptive field (composed of direct input from photoreceptors and indirect input from horizontal cells) and then goes to ganglion cells both directly, and also indirectly via amacrine cells.
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