A comparison of spatio-temporal receptive fields of ganglion cells in the retinas of the tadpole and adult frog

Abstract

Receptive fields formed by ganglion cells were measured simultaneously in time and space in the adult and tadpole retinas. The spatio-temporal receptive-fields (STRFs) were measured by cross-correlating the spatio-temporal white-noise stimulus with the cells' spike discharges. Crosscorrelation was made photographically to extract the first order STRF kernel (approximately linear component of the STRFs). The time-course of STRF formed by the frog ganglion cells was twice as fast as that of the tadpole cells. The STRF formed by the tadpole ganglion cells was either a center-brightening or a center-dimming type whereas in the frog there was another class of cells which produced either complex STRFs or did not show any linear component in their STRFs. Size of the STRFs in frog and tadpole was similar in both frog and tadpole retinas.