Morphology and Circuitry of Ganglion Cells

Morphology and Circuitry of Ganglion Cells
Author: Helga Kolb

General Morphology

Ganglion cells are the final output neurons of the vertebrate retina. The ganglion cell collects the electrical messages concerning the visual signal from the two layers of nerve cells preceding it in the retinal wiring scheme. A great deal of preprocessing has been accomplished by the neurons of the vertical pathways (photoreceptor to bipolar to ganglion cell chain), and by the lateral pathways (photoreceptor to horizontal cell to bipolar to a macrine to ganglion cell chain), before presentation to the ganglion cell, and so it represents the ultimate signaler to the brain of retinal information. Ganglion cells are larger on average than most preceding retinal inter neurons and have large diameter axons capable of passing the electrical signal, in the form of transient spike trains, to the retinal recipient areas of the brain many millimeters or centimeters distant from the retina. The optic nerve collects all of the axons of the ganglion cells, and this bundle of more than a million fibers (in humans, at least) then passes information to the next relay station in the brain for sorting and integrating into additional information-processing channels.

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