Abstract
Spontaneous waves in the developing retina are essential in the formation of the retinotopic mapping in the visual system. From experiments in rabbits, it is known that the earliest type of retinal waves (stage I) is nucleated spontaneously, propagates at a speed of 451±91 μm/sec and relies on gap junction coupling between ganglion cells. Because gap junctions (electrical synapses) have short integration times, it has been argued that they cannot set the low speed of stage I retinal waves. Here, we present a theoretical study of a two-dimensional neural network of the ganglion cell layer with gap junction coupling and intrinsic noise. We demonstrate that this model can explain observed nucleation rates as well as the comparatively slow propagation speed of the waves. From the interaction between two coupled neurons, we estimate the wave speed in the model network. Furthermore, using simulations of small networks of neurons (N≤260), we estimate the nucleation rate in the form of an Arrhenius escape rate. These results allow for informed simulations of a realistically sized network, yielding values of the gap junction coupling and the intrinsic noise level that are in a physiologically plausible range.
Highlights
Spontaneous activity spreads through neuronal systems of many different mammal species during development
Retinal waves are a prominent example of spontaneous activity that is observed in neuronal systems of many different species during development
Even at the earliest stage, in which the network merely consists of ganglion cells coupled by electric synapses, it is unclear which mechanisms are responsible for wave nucleation and transmission speed
Summary
Spontaneous activity spreads through neuronal systems of many different mammal species during development. The copyright holder for this preprint It is made available under. Among the most prominent roles is the synaptic refinement in the retina, where spatio-temporally correlated bursts of activity are observed, and it was found that blocking these waves disrupts eye-specific segregation into the visual thalamus [2, 3]. The observed patterns of spontaneous activity in the developing retina are remarkably similar across many species [1]. These patterns have been characterized as spatially correlated bursts of activity in the ganglion cell (GC) layer, which are followed by periods of silence [8,9,10]
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