Talk: Retinal waves prime visual motion detection by simulating future optic flow
Speaker: Xinxin Ge, Yale University (grid.47100.32)
Title: Retinal waves prime visual motion detection by simulating future optic flow
Emcee: Leena Ali ibrahim
Backend host: Silvia Pittolo
Details: https://neuromatch.io/abstract?submis...
Presented during Neuromatch Conference 3.0, Oct 26-30, 2020.
Summary: The ability to perceive and respond to environmental stimuli emerges in the absence of sensory experience. Spontaneous retinal activity prior to eye-opening guides the refinement of retinotopy and eye-specific segregation, but its role in the development of higher order visual response properties remains unclear. Here, we describe a transient developmental window during which the spatial propagation of spontaneous retinal waves resembles the optic flow pattern generated by forward self-motion. We show that wave directionality requires the same circuit components that form the adult direction-selective retinal circuit and that chronic disruption of wave directionality alters the development of direction-selective responses of superior colliculus neurons. These data demonstrate how the developing visual system patterns spontaneous activity to simulate ethologically relevant features of the external world to instruct self-organization.