Data from: The functional diversity of retinal ganglion cells in the mouse

In the vertebrate visual system, all output of the retina is carried by retinal ganglion cells. Each type encodes distinct visual features in parallel for transmission to the brain. How many such ‘output channels’ exist and what each encodes are areas of intense debate. In the mouse, anatomical estimates range from 15 to 20 channels, and only a handful are functionally understood. By combining two-photon calcium imaging to obtain dense retinal recordings and unsupervised clustering of the resulting sample of more than 11,000 cells, here we show that the mouse retina harbours substantially more than 30 functional output channels. These include all known and several new ganglion cell types, as verified by genetic and anatomical criteria. Therefore, information channels from the mouse eye to the mouse brain are considerably more diverse than shown thus far by anatomical studies, suggesting an encoding strategy resembling that used in state-of-the-art artificial vision systems.

在脊椎动物视觉系统中，视网膜的所有输出信号均由视网膜神经节细胞（retinal ganglion cell）传递。每一类该细胞均并行编码独特的视觉特征，并将信号传输至大脑。这类‘输出通道’的具体数量，以及每一类通道所编码的信息内容，长期以来都是学界激烈争论的核心议题。在小鼠模型中，解剖学研究估算的输出通道数量介于15至20之间，且目前仅少数通道的功能得到明确阐释。本研究通过双光子钙成像（two-photon calcium imaging）获取高密度视网膜神经元活动记录，并对超过11000个细胞的采样数据开展无监督聚类分析，结果显示小鼠视网膜中存在远超30种功能性输出通道。这些通道涵盖了所有已被认知的神经节细胞类型，以及若干新发现的细胞类群，该结论已通过遗传学与解剖学标准得到验证。因此，小鼠视网膜向大脑传递信息的通道多样性，远高于此前解剖学研究的报道，这提示其视觉信息编码策略与当前顶尖人工视觉系统所采用的机制高度相似。