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，视网膜的全部输出信号均由视网膜神经节细胞（retinal ganglion cells）传递。每一类视网膜神经节细胞会并行编码差异化的视觉特征，随后将信号传输至大脑。这类“输出通道”的具体数量，以及各通道所编码的信息内容，至今仍是学界热烈探讨的核心议题。在小鼠模型中，解剖学研究估算其存在15至20条此类输出通道，但目前仅少数通道的功能机制得到明确阐释。本研究通过结合双光子钙成像（two-photon calcium imaging）技术获取高密度视网膜神经活动记录，并对超过11000个细胞的采样数据开展无监督聚类（unsupervised clustering）分析，结果证实小鼠视网膜中存在的功能性输出通道数量远超过30条。该结果涵盖了所有已知的神经节细胞类型，同时还包含若干全新的细胞亚型，相关结论通过遗传学与解剖学标准得到了验证。由此可见，小鼠眼部向脑部传递视觉信息的通道多样性，远超此前解剖学研究的认知水平，这提示小鼠视觉系统的编码策略与当前前沿的人工视觉系统所采用的编码机制具有高度相似性。