MOLECULAR-BIOLOGY OF RETINAL GANGLION-CELLS

Retinal ganglion cells are the output neurons that encode and transmit information from the eye to the brain, Their diverse physiologic and anatomic properties have been intensively studied and appear to accoun t well for a number of psychophysical phenomena such as lateral inhibi tion and chromatic opponency. In this paper, we summarize our current view of retinal ganglion cell properties and pose a number of question s regarding underlying molecular mechanisms. As an example of one appr oach to understanding molecular mechanisms, we describe recent work on several POU domain transcription factors that are expressed in subset s of retinal ganglion cells and that appear to be involved in ganglion cell development.