AUTHOR=Mu Shang , Turner Nicholas L. , Silversmith William M. , Jordan Chris S. , Kemnitz Nico , Sorek Marissa , David Celia , Jones Devon L. , Bland Doug , Moore Merlin , Sterling Amy Robinson , Seung H. Sebastian 

TITLE=Special nuclear layer contacts between starburst amacrine cells in the mouse retina

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Ophthalmology

VOLUME=Volume 3 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/ophthalmology/articles/10.3389/fopht.2023.1129463

DOI=10.3389/fopht.2023.1129463

ISSN=2674-0826

ABSTRACT=The starburst amacrine cells are a prominent neuron type in the mammalian retina, well studied for their role in direction-selective information processing. One specific property of these cells is that their dendrites tightly stratify at specific depths within the inner plexiform layer (IPL), which together with their unique expression of choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) resulted in them becoming the most common depth landmark for studying other retinal neurons in IPL. This stratifying property makes it unexpected that they could have dendrites routinely reaching into the nuclear layer or that they could have somatic contact specializations, which are just what we have found with this report. Specifically, an electron microscopic image volume of sufficient size from a mouse retina provided us with the opportunity to anatomically observe both microscopic details and collective patterns, and our detailed cell reconstructions revealed interesting cell-cell contacts between starburst amacrine neurons. The contact characteristics differ between the respective On and Off starburst amacrine subpopulations, but both occur within the soma layers as opposed to their regular laminae of contact within the inner plexiform layer.