Interference Fringes Used to Determine Retinal Ganglion Cell Receptive Field Sizes.

摘要

A method is presented for determining the effective diameter of retinal ganglion cell receptive field centers. Unaffected by the optics of the eye, the method involves single-unit recording of ganglion cell activity in response to drifting interference fringe patterns of various spatial frequencies. The ganglion cell response magnitude (contrast) falls off as the spatial frequency of the fringes is increased. From the spatial frequency dependence of the observed responses, the receptive field centers of the sampled X-cells were estimated to range from 6.8 to 10 micron in diameter. Suggested improvements to the technique are discussed.