Patch clamp data associated with Werginz et al. - Differential intrinsic firing properties in sustained and transient mouse αRGCs match their light response characteristics and persist during retinal degeneration

Data, as well as simplified load and plot functions. The data is the basis for figures 1, 2, 3 and 5 in Werginz et al. (10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1592-24.2024). Functionality includes loading results from a specified retinal ganglion cell (RGC) and plotting spiking output (e.g., membrane voltage over time) in response to visual stimulation as well as long (500 ms) and short (3 ms) current injections into the soma. Provided code does not perform threshold searching or other, more complex, analysis.

Context and methodology

Data was created by patch clamp electrophysiology of mouse alpha retinal ganglion cells (RGCs)

Light as well as intracellular stimulation was applied to test intinsic properties of different types of RGCs.

Technical details

Data can directly be loaded and plotted in Matlab running plotData.m (tested in Matlab R2024b)

Parameters to be specified:

cellID - identifier of each recorded cell, see list on top of plotData.m. Don't forget to add the folder prefix specifiying cell type (ONS, OFFS or OFFT)

The Data folder is structured into different cell types (ONS, OFFS or OFFT) data

The helperFunctions folder includes additional methods to extract and plot data

If help is needed feel free to reach out to Paul Werginz

Data is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0), the scripts are licensed under a MIT License.

Retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) are the neuronal connections between the eye and the brain conveying multiple features of the outside world through parallel pathways. While there is a large body of literature on how these pathways arise in the retinal network, the process of converting presynaptic inputs into RGC spiking output is little understood. In this study, we show substantial differences in the spike generator across three types of αRGCs in female and male mice, the αON sustained, αOFF sustained, and αOFF transient RGC. The differences in their intrinsic spiking responses match the differences in the light responses across RGC types. While sustained RGC types have spike generators that are able to generate sustained trains of action potentials at high rates, the transient RGC type fired shortest action potentials enabling it to fire high-frequency transient bursts. The observed differences were also present in late-stage photoreceptor-degenerated retina demonstrating long-term functional stability of RGC responses even when presynaptic circuitry is deteriorated for long periods of time. Our results demonstrate that intrinsic cell properties support the presynaptic retinal computation and are, once established, independent of them.