Integration and evaluation of magnetic stimulation in physiology setups.

A large number of behavioral experiments have demonstrated the existence of a magnetic sense in many animal species. Further, studies with immediate gene expression markers have identified putative brain regions involved in magnetic information processing. In contrast, very little is known about the physiology of the magnetic sense and how the magnetic field is neuronally encoded. In vivo electrophysiological studies reporting neuronal correlates of the magnetic sense either have turned out to be irreproducible for lack of appropriate artifact controls or still await independent replication. Thus far, the research field of magnetoreception has little exploited the power of ex vivo physiological studies, which hold great promise for enabling stringent controls. However, tight space constraints in a recording setup and the presence of magnetizable materials in setup components and microscope objectives make it demanding to generate well-defined magnetic stimuli at the location of the biological specimen. Here, we present a solution based on a miniature vector magnetometer, a coil driver, and a calibration routine for the coil system to compensate for magnetic distortions in the setup. The magnetometer fits in common physiology recording chambers and has a sufficiently small spatial integration area to allow for probing spatial inhomogeneities. The coil-driver allows for the generation of defined non-stationary fast changing magnetic stimuli. Our ex vivo multielectrode array recordings from avian retinal ganglion cells show that artifacts induced by rapid magnetic stimulus changes can mimic the waveform of biological spikes on single electrodes. However, induction artifacts can be separated clearly from biological responses if the spatio-temporal characteristics of the artifact on multiple electrodes is taken into account. We provide the complete hardware design data and software resources for the integrated magnetic stimulation system.

Electrical Coupling of Heterotypic Ganglion Cells in the Mammalian Retina.

Electrical coupling has been reported to occur only between homotypic retinal ganglion cells, in line with the concept of parallel processing in the early visual system. Here, however, we show reciprocal correlated firing between heterotypic ganglion cells in multielectrode array recordings during light stimulation in retinas of adult guinea pigs of either sex. Heterotypic coupling was further confirmed via tracer spread after intracellular injections of single cells with neurobiotin. Both electrically coupled cell types were sustained ON center ganglion cells but showed distinct light response properties and receptive field sizes. We identified one of the involved cell types as sustained ON α-ganglion cells. The presence of electrical coupling between heterotypic ganglion cells introduces a network motif in which the signals of distinct ganglion cell types are partially mixed at the output stage of the retina.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The visual information is split into parallel pathways, before it is sent to the brain via the output neurons of the retina, the ganglion cells. Ganglion cells can form electrical synapses between dendrites of neighboring cells in support of lateral information exchange. To date, ganglion-to-ganglion cell coupling is thought to occur only between cells of the same type. Here, however, we show that electrical coupling between different types of ganglion cells exists in the mammalian retina. We provide functional and anatomical evidence that two different types of ganglion cells share information via electrical coupling. This new network motif extends the impact of the heavily studied coding benefits of homotypic coupling to heterotypic coupling across parallel neuronal pathways.

No influence of acute RF exposure (GSM-900, GSM-1800, and UMTS) on mouse retinal ganglion cell responses under constant temperature conditions.

Possible non-thermal effects of radio frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) on retinal ganglion cells were studied in vitro under conditions of constant temperature. Isolated mouse retinae were exposed to GSM-900, GSM-1800, and universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS) RF-EMF applying specific absorption rates (SAR) of 0 (sham), 0.02, 0.2, 2, and 20 W/kg. Temperature was kept constant within ±0.5 to 1 °C for GSM-900 and ±0.5 °C for GSM-1800 and UMTS. Responses of retinal ganglion cells to light stimuli of three intensities (0.5, 16, and 445 lx) were recorded before, during, and up to 35 min after exposure. Experiments were performed under double-blind conditions. Changes in light responses during and after exposure were determined for each condition (RF-EMF; SAR value; light intensity) with respect to the responses before exposure, respectively. Changes were calculated using the Euclidian distance of the n-dimensional response vectors, respectively. Some changes already occurred during sham (0 W/kg) exposure, reflecting the intrinsic variability in retinal ganglion cell responses. Comparison of the distance values from sham exposure with those from actual exposure yielded no significant differences. In addition, linear regression analysis of the distance values versus SAR values yielded no consistent dependence of light response changes. From these results we conclude that RF-EMF exposure at three mobile phone frequencies (GSM-900, GSM-1800, UMTS) and SARs up to 20 W/kg has no acute effects on retinal ganglion cell responses under constant temperature conditions.

A system for precise temperature control of isolated nervous tissue under optical access: application to multi-electrode recordings.

BACKGROUND: Since temperature severely affects all physiological processes, exact temperature control during electrophysiological measurements is indispensable. However, none of the tempering system approaches previously described is fully satisfactory for extracellular recordings with sharp multi-electrode arrays (MEAs). NEW METHOD: We developed a set-up offering a homogeneously tempered and at the same time light-transparent stage for an ex vivo preparation. The Peltier element based tempering unit of our system is physically separated from the preparation stage avoiding electrical disturbances of extracellular recordings. We implemented a digital feedback controller on a microcontroller to minimise the deviation between actual and set point temperature. RESULTS: Our tempering system allows operation from 10°C to 45°C with a control error in steady state between 0.052°C (RMSE) and 0.115°C (RMSE). To document the versatility of our system, we performed extracellular MEA recordings from retinal ganglion cells of isolated retina under different temperature conditions. We found strong influences on light response properties, even for small temperature changes. COMPARISON WITH EXISTING METHODS: Currently used heating systems that allow top and bottom side optical access to a preparation typically exhibit low temperature accuracy, precision or homogeneity. CONCLUSIONS: Our system is adequate not only for experiments on a variety of species under physiological temperature conditions but also for studies on temperature effects on physiology in general. Though the setup was developed for the context of MEA recordings from retina it may be useful in other cases where optical access to the preparation from both, top and bottom side is required.

High speed coding for velocity by archerfish retinal ganglion cells.

BACKGROUND: Archerfish show very short behavioural latencies in response to falling prey. This raises the question, which response parameters of retinal ganglion cells to moving stimuli are best suited for fast coding of stimulus speed and direction. RESULTS: We compared stimulus reconstruction quality based on the ganglion cell response parameters latency, first interspike interval, and rate. For stimulus reconstruction of moving stimuli using latency was superior to using the other stimulus parameters. This was true for absolute latency, with respect to stimulus onset, as well as for relative latency, with respect to population response onset. Iteratively increasing the number of cells used for reconstruction decreased the calculated error close to zero. CONCLUSIONS: Latency is the fastest response parameter available to the brain. Therefore, latency coding is best suited for high speed coding of moving objects. The quantitative data of this study are in good accordance with previously published behavioural response latencies.

Temperature-controlled exposure systems for investigating possible changes of retinal ganglion cell activity in response to high-frequency electromagnetic fields.

Two exposure systems were developed for the measurement of retinal ganglion cell responses to light under the influence of pulsed high-frequency electromagnetic fields. Exposure characteristics were determined numerically for the GSM standards (900/1,800 MHz) and the UMTS standard (1,966 MHz) with specific absorption rates, averaged over the region of interest, of 0.02, 0.2, 2 und 20 W kg(-1). Extracellular multi- and single unit recordings of light responses from several retinal ganglion cells per retina could be obtained in these exposure systems on a regular basis, using two recording electrodes simultaneously. With appropriate temperature control adjustment, maximal temperature deviations at exposure onset and offset were well below the range of +/-0.1 degrees C for all SAR values.