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An Instructive Role for Patterned Spontaneous Retinal Activity in Mouse Visual Map Development

This paper by Hongping Xu, Moran Furman, Yann S. Mineur, Hui Chen, Sarah L. King, David Zenisek, Z. Jimmy Zhou, Daniel A. Butts, Ning Tian, Marina R. Picciotto and Michael Crair describes a collaborative effort from several laboratories from Yale University, the University of Maryland and the University of Utah.  Two former postdoctoral fellows from the laboratory of Ning Tian, Drs. Hongping Xu (the first author) and Hui Chen, were principal contributors. Continue reading “An Instructive Role for Patterned Spontaneous Retinal Activity in Mouse Visual Map Development”

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Effect of General Anesthetics on IOP in Elevated IOP Mouse Model

Elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) is the best recognized risk factor for the pathogenesis of glaucoma and the extent of retinal ganglion cell (RGC) degeneration in glaucoma is closely correlated with the extent of IOP elevation.  Therefore, accurately and reliably measuring IOP is critical in investigating the mechanism of pressure-induced RGC damage in glaucoma.  However, IOP is typically measured under general anesthesia in most studies using mouse models and many anesthetics affect the IOP measurements in both human and animals. Continue reading “Effect of General Anesthetics on IOP in Elevated IOP Mouse Model”

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Light-Evoked Synaptic Activity of Retinal Ganglion and Amacrine Cells is Regulated in Developing Mouse Retina

This paper by Q. He, Wang P and Ning Tian characterizes the developmental profiles of the light evoked excitatory and inhibitory synaptic inputs from ON and OFF synaptic pathways in the retina, the light evoked synaptic outputs and the sensitivity of the light evoked synaptic inputs and outputs to light deprivation of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) and displaced amacrine cells (ACs) of developing mouse retina.  The results strongly suggest that spontaneous and light-evoked synaptic activities of RGCs and ACs are regulated by different synaptic mechanisms.

Continue reading “Light-Evoked Synaptic Activity of Retinal Ganglion and Amacrine Cells is Regulated in Developing Mouse Retina”