Timwithablog

fuckyeahmolecularbiology:

Retinal Fireworks

Retinal ganglion cells transmit signals from the rods and cones in the eye to the brain. The retinal ganglion cells shown here have the extraordinary property that their dendrites all point in a single direction. Remarkably, these neurons respond best to objects moving in the direction that the cells “point.”

In this particular image, a mouse retina is seen with “J” retinal ganglion cells marked by the expression of a fluorescent protein. Of course, in real eyes it’s not that simple - the millions of other neurons that these are entangled with are not marked, and thus appear invisible. The image was obtained with a confocal scanning microscope, and pseudocoloured.