Abstract
Presentation Description :
Recent work on animal models of glaucoma suggest that retinal ganglion cells undergo functional changes prior to structural alterations and cell death. By correlating multielectrode spike recordings with measurements of dendritic structure and synapse distributions, we identified early changes in ganglion cell function before dendrites are lost. The physiological changes correspond to elimination of synapses, implying that inner retinal circuitry is likely perturbed early on in the disease process. Furthermore, we and other groups have found that specific types of ganglion cells are more rapidly affected by increases in intraocular pressure than other types. Identifying the visual response properties of the relatively more susceptible ganglion cell types could in future facilitate the design of functional assays for early detection of the disease.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.