צמד תיקון הקלטה של ​​תאי הקרנות amacrine בתוך הכנת שטוח הר Deafferentated רשתית העכבר

As an easily accessible part of the central nervous system, the retina has for decades been a useful model in neuroscience studies. Genetic marking of neurons has allowed detailed characterization of synaptic connections in the retina. With many methodologies available to examine function and morphology of retinal neurons, the patch clamp recording technique has been instrumental in our current understanding of vertically transmitted signals in the retina. These signals are originated from photon absorption in photoreceptors and sent to brain visual centers through spiking of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). Despite a large body of knowledge accumulated thus far, neural diversity in vascularized mammalian retina remains unsolved and obstructs the full appreciation of retinal circuits that subserve normal vision. This is in part because most recordings were performed on retinal slices to trade lateral circuit integrity for access to more proximal retinal neurons^1-3. To gain a comprehensive picture on how retina computes visual signals, it is thus desirable to record neurons in flat-mounts wherein lateral connections, large and small, may be better preserved.

When synaptic transmission from photoreceptors to bipolar cells is interrupted due to a defective metabotropic glutamate receptor 6 (mGluR6) signaling pathway in depolarizing bipolar cells^4-6 or simply as the result of photoreceptor loss in degenerated retinas^7-10, many RGCs exhibit oscillatory activities. These oscillations originate from multiple sources, however the one involving gap junction coupling between AII amacrine cells (AII-ACs) and depolarizing cone bipolar cells (DCBCs) has received the most attention and hence is best understood^1,7,11. We have found another source, which persists under pharmacological blockade of the aforementioned AII-AC/DCBC network and drives oscillation of OFF-type SACs in RhoΔCTA and Nob mice with deafferentated retinas^7,8,12. Here we detail our protocol of preparing retinal flat-mounts for INL neuron recording. This approach uses commercial mouse lines (Jax stock no. 006410 and 007905) to mark cholinergic retinal neurons by fluorescent protein (tdTomato) expression that is identifiable under a fluorescent microscope equipped with contrast enhancing optics. Some experimental results acquired through this approach have been previously reported^4,5,7,13.