Second, the high threshold selects strong signals to provide a sparse representation of the motion trajectory, allowing a robust distinction between whether these signals coincide in the center and in the periphery or not. A type of ganglion cell with similar function and circuitry has recently been discovered in mouse retina. These so-called

W3 ganglion cells are sensitive to small moving objects in front of a still background (Zhang et al., 2012). Excitatory input is provided by both On-type and Off-type bipolar cells in the receptive field, each after undergoing a half-wave rectifying RG7420 nonlinear transformation. This convergence of On-type and Off-type signals makes the cells sensitive to any change in the receptive field. Similar to the object-motion-sensitive cells discussed above, this excitation is opposed

by an inhibitory circuit that detects signals in the periphery in a way analogous to the operation of the center circuit. Thus, any peripheral or global signals will suppress the ganglion cell; only a small, locally restricted visual input leads to activation – and may trigger an escape reaction to a potential approaching threat (Zhang et al., 2012). Again, the nonlinearities associated with the pooling of signals over space represent a critical feature; they let the cells become sensitive to small stimuli of the size of bipolar cell receptive fields while avoiding cancelation by negative activation at other locations. On-type and Off-type bipolar cell signals also converge in the receptive field center of another type of ganglion Selleck Ibrutinib cell, found in these the salamander retina (Gollisch and Meister, 2008b). Again, these excitatory signals undergo half-wave rectification so that any local change of the visual signal within the receptive field center can contribute to driving the ganglion cell. A crucial feature

of these cells, however, is a relative delay of the On-type inputs by about 30–40 ms compared to the Off-type signals. This provides the cells’ spiking responses with a characteristic temporal structure; the latency of the first spike after the occurrence of a new visual scene encodes the relative contributions of darkening and brightening within the receptive field and thus provides a rapid information channel about spatial structure in the scene. Functionally similar to the W3 cell discussed above, but based on a different circuit, an Off-type ganglion cell found in mouse retina has been associated with the detection of approaching objects, representing potential threats. These cells respond strongly to an increase in size of a dark object, even when combined with an overall brightening of the scene, whereas laterally moving or receding objects do not activate these cells (Münch et al., 2009). Again, a nonlinear circuit has been proposed to underlie this specific motion detection.