Contribution of the GABAergic pathway(s) to the correlated activities of chicken retinal ganglion cells

In the present study, the spatiotemporal pattern of chicken retinal ganglion cells' firing activity in response to full-field white light stimulation was investigated. Cross-correlation analysis showed that ganglion cells of sustained subtype fired in precise synchrony with their adjacent neurons of the same subtype (delay lag within 2 ms, narrow correlation). On the other hand, the activities of neighboring ganglion cells of transient subtype were correlated with distributed time lags (10-30 ms, medium correlation). Pharmacological studies demonstrated that the intensity of the medium correlations could be strengthened when exogenous GABA was applied and attenuated when GABA receptors were blocked by picrotoxin. Meanwhile, the GABAergic modulation on the narrow correlations was not consistent. These results suggest that, in the chicken retina, GABAergic pathway(s) are likely involved in the formation of medium correlations between ganglion cells. Neurons might fire at a lower rate but with higher level of synchronization to improve the efficiency of information transmission, with the mechanism involving the GABAergic inhibitory input.