Information Processing: Ganglion Cells

Information about the visual environment leaves the retina in parallel streams, carried to the brain by the axons of different types of retinal ganglion cells. Each ganglion cell type is activated by certain visual features. The retinal circuitry leading up to the ganglion cells, combined with properties of the ganglion cells themselves, extracts those features from the incident stimulus. This is achieved by sophisticated networks of excitatory and inhibitory interneurons, which are connected to each other in an appropriate spatial relationship, and which have suitable temporal properties. The circuits of movement-encoding ganglion cells are described and compared in greater detail.