Cw. Oyster et al., DENDRITIC ARCHITECTURE OF ON OFF DIRECTION-SELECTIVE GANGLION-CELLS IN THE RABBIT RETINA, Vision research, 33(5-6), 1993, pp. 579-608
ON-OFF direction-selective ganglion cells in rabbit retina have bistra
tified dendritic arbors that are formed by contributions from three or
four primary dendrites and their dependent branches (dendritic system
s). Most dendritic systems contribute to both branching planes, but so
me are confined to a single plane. The way in which dendritic systems
combine to form the branching planes varies from cell to cell, but the
dendritic systems always produce a non-overlapping tiling of the plan
es having a distinctive mesh-like appearance. This mesh-like pattern a
ppears to be produced primarily by a large number of branches that ter
minate close to the cell somata. Despite clear differences in the deta
iled construction of the dendritic arbors, quantitative morphological
attributes vary primarily with overall size, and the variation is near
ly isometric. We therefore regard these cells as isomorphic, in the se
nse that they have developed according to the same rather liberal rule
s for dendritic growth. More importantly, however, we have not found a
ny morphological feature that is correlated with the cells' preferred
response directions. We conclude that the distinctive dendritic archit
ecture of these cells is related to general requirements for dense, un
iform sampling from specific input arrays, and not direction-selectivi
ty per se. The most important rules governing the branching pattern of
the ON-OFF direction-selective cells may be related to territoriality
, wherein dendrites, dendritic systems, and cells of the same type est
ablish non-overlapping domains.