MbShea@PWP@English@UMCP

ABSTRACT: Connectomics is a daunting field of study due to the extreme complexity of the circuit processing. For this reason, the retina remains a popular part of the brain to study due to its accessible location and the definitive and refined function for vision. Through images generated by scanning block face electron micrographs (SBEM), we can study the morphology of retinal cells more closely as well as their patterns of communication. This project focuses on the rod pathway and, more specifically, the secondary neuron involved in this pathway – the rod bipolar cell (RBC). Although this cell has been shown to indirectly contact cone bipolar cells (Tsukamoto, 2001), using the AII amacrine cell as an intermediary, we find that there is still much more to be known about the morphology of the RBC and the types of interneurons and circuits associated with it. Until recently (Pang et al., 2009), there has been a general acknowledgment of only one type of RBC involved in the RB pathway. With the assistance of Knossos, a 3D annotation and reconstruction program, I was able to annotate and reconstruct several RBCs and track neurons that these cells contacted. In my preliminary analysis, I have found that there are two morphologically distinct RBCs that come into contact with a multistratified displaced amacrine cell (pCRH2). Additionally, it appears that these two RBC’s contact the pCRH2 AC via distinct synapses, either receiving or providing inhibition (deemed RBC1 and RBC2 respectively). With further exploration and research, it is quite possible that a novel circuit in the RB pathway be revealed. This indicates that the RB pathway may serve a more complex functional role in vision than previously simplified to predominantly contrast vision.


READER’S PROFILE: I imagine my reader to be someone who is acclimated to science writing, perhaps a professor, researcher, or science major.

READER’S RESPONSE: Your plan of action seems very plausible and interesting. I am not well versed in retinal neurobiology jargon, but I look forward to reading your introduction to get a background. I will likely also have my computer with me, searching terms when needed. Although this paper seems very technical and science-oriented, I look forward to reading about your research.

A -- be sure to provide within your brief definitions "connectomics" as one of the other genomics categories that all really on construction knowledge based on strings of base pairs that are uploaded into a reference data base where we can figure out by statistical comparison "what" is going on in a metabolic system.

Fascinating. :)