Abstract

Direction selective ganglion cells in the vertebrate retina respond differentially to the direction of a moving stimulus. Extracellular recordings in the rabbit retina [Barlow and Levick (1965)] indicate that the mechanism underlying this nonlinear operation involves inhibition vetoing excitation in the null direction. In the preferred direction, inhibition arrives too late to block excitation. Torre and Poggio (1978) proposed that this veto operation is mediated by the nonlinear interaction between excitation and inhibition with a reversal potential close to the resting potential of the cell (silent or shunting inhibition).

© 1987 Optical Society of America