Analysis of excitatory and inhibitory spontaneous synaptic activity in mouse retinal ganglion cells

Spontaneous inhibitory and excitatory postsynaptic currents (sIPSCs and sEPSCs) were identified and characterized with whole cell and perforated patch voltage-clamp recordings in adult mouse retinal ganglion cells. Pharmacological dissection revealed that all cells were driven by spontaneous synaptic inputs mediated by glutamate and gamma-aminobutyric acid-A (GABA(A)) receptors. One-half (7/14) of the cells also received glycinergic spontaneous synaptic inputs. Both GABA(A) and glycine receptor-mediated sIPSCs had rise times (10-90%) of <1 ms. The decay times of the GABA(A) receptor-mediated sIPSCs were comparable with those of the glycine receptor-mediated sIPSCs. The average decay time constant for monoexponentially fitted sIPSCs was 63.2 +/- 74.1 ms (mean +/- SD, n = 3278). Glutamate receptor-mediated sEPSCs had an average rise time of 0.50 +/- 0.20 ms (n = 109) and an average monoexponential decay time constant of 5.9 +/- 8.6 ms (n = 2705). Slightly more than two-thirds of the spontaneous synaptic events were monoexponential (68% for sIPSCs and 76% for sEPSCs). The remainder of the events was biexponential. The amplitudes of the spontaneous synaptic events were not correlated with rise times, suggesting that the electrotonic filtering properties of the neurons and/or differences in the spatial location of synaptic inputs could not account for the difference between the decay time constants of the glutamate and GABA(A)/glycine receptor-mediated spontaneous synaptic events. The amplitudes of sEPSCs were similar to those recorded in tetrodotoxin (TTX), consistent with the events measured in control saline being the response to the release of a single quantum of transmitter. The range of the sIPSC amplitudes in control saline was wider than that recorded in TTX, consistent with some sIPSCs being evoked by presynaptic spikes having an average quantal size greater than one. The rates of sIPSCs and sEPSCs were determined under equivalent conditions by recording with perforated patch electrodes at potentials at which both types of event could be identified. Two groups of ganglion cell were observed; one group had an average sEPSCs/sIPSCs frequency ratio of 0.96 +/- 0.77 (n = 28) and another group had an average ratio of 6.63 +/- 0.82 (n = 7). These findings suggest that a subset of cells is driven much more strongly by excitatory synaptic inputs. We propose that this subset of cells could be OFF ganglion cells, consistent with the higher frequency of spontaneous action potentials found in OFF ganglion cells in other studies.