• Molecules and Cells
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• 제23권2호
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• pp.215-219
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• 2007

In mammals light input resets the central clock of the suprachiasmatic nucleus by inducing secretion of pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) from retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). We previously showed that thyroid transcription factor 1 (TTF-1), a homeodomain-containing transcription factor, specifically regulates PACAP gene expression in the rat hypothalamus. In the present study we examined the expression of TTF-1 in PACAP-synthesizing retinal cells. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) showed that it is abundantly expressed in RGCs of the superior region of the retina, but in only a small subset of RGCs in the inferior region. Double FISH experiments revealed that TTF-1 is exclusively expressed in PACAP-producing RGCs. These results suggest that TTF-1 plays a regulatory role in PACAP-expressing retinal ganglion cells.

• 한국의학물리학회지:의학물리
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• 제15권4호
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• pp.228-236
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• 2004

망막의 신경절세포는 눈에 가해진 시각 정보를 흥분파의 형태로 변환하여 시신경을 통하여 대뇌의 시각피질까지 전달한다. 과거에 사용하여 왔던 방법은 단일 전극을 단일 뉴론의 세포내, 외에 삽입함으로써 특정 시간대에 특정 뉴론만을 기록하는 방법이었으므로 신경망 전체를 통하여 처리되어 나오는 정보를 알아보기에는 적합하지 않다. 다행히 최근에 다채널 전극을 사용하여 여러 신경세포에서 나오는 신호를 동시에 기록할 수 있는 다채널기록법(multichannel recording) 이 개발되었으므로 본 연구에서는 8행 ${\times}$ 8열의 다채널전극을 사용한 다채널기록법을 이용하여 망막신경절세포 군집의 흥분파를 기록, 분석함으로써 단일 신경세포가 아닌 망막 신경망을 거쳐 최종적으로 나오는 신호에 대해서 연구하였다. 전극에 부착된 망막 절편에 2초 동안 빛을 가하고 5초 동안 빛이 차단되는 자극을 반복적으로 인가한 후, PSTH 분석방법으로 망막 신경절세포를 ON 세포, OFF세포, ON/OFF세포의 세가지 유형으로 분류할 수 있었으며, ON 세포: 35.0$\pm$4.4%, OFF 세포： 30.4$\pm$1.9%, ON/OFF 세포： 34.6$\pm$5.3% (전체 망막절편수=8)로 분포되어 있음을 확인하였다. 또한 상호상관(Cross-Correlation) 분석방법을 통해서 인접한 세포들끼리 매우 짧은 시간대에(<1 ms) 동기화된 흥분을 발사함을 확인할 수 있었고, 동기화된 흥분은 6～8개의 세포로 구성된 세포 클러스터에서 일어남을 확인하였다. 즉 개개의 신경절세포들이 빛 자극을 처리함에 있어 독립적으로 작용한다는 기존의 가정과는 달리 인접한 세포끼리는 동기화된 흥분을 보이는 것을 확인하였으며, 이러한 방식은 시세포 수와 신경절세포 수의 불균형으로 인해 초래되는 병목현상을 완화할 수 있는 효과적인 기전으로 생각된다.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• 제12권6호
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• pp.307-314
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• 2008

Retinal prostheses are being developed to restore vision for the blind with retinal diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa (RP) or age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Among the many issues for prosthesis development, stimulation encoding strategy is one of the most essential electrophysiological issues. The more we understand the retinal circuitry how it encodes and processes visual information, the greater it could help decide stimulation encoding strategy for retinal prosthesis. Therefore, we examined how retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) in in-vitro retinal preparation act together to encode a visual scene with multielectrode array (MEA). Simultaneous recording of many RGCs with MEA showed that nearby neurons often fired synchronously, with spike delays mostly within 1 ms range. This synchronized firing - narrow correlation - was blocked by gap junction blocker, heptanol, but not by glutamatergic synapse blocker, kynurenic acid. By tracking down all the RGC pairs which showed narrow correlation, we could harvest 40 functional connectivity maps of RGCs which showed the cell cluster firing together. We suggest that finding functional connectivity map would be useful in stimulation encoding strategy for the retinal prosthesis since stimulating the cluster of RGCs would be more efficient than separately stimulating each individual RGC.

• BMB Reports
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• 제42권7호
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• pp.456-461
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• 2009

Proteomic analyses of differentially expressed proteins in rat retinal ganglion cells (RGC-5) following S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO), an NO donor, treatment were conducted. Of the approximately 314 protein spots that were detected, 19 were differentially expressed in response to treatment with GSNO. Of these, 14 proteins were up-regulated and 5 were down- regulated. Notably, an increase in GAPDH expression following GSNO treatment was detected in RGC-5 cells through Western blotting as well as proteomics. The increased GAPDH expression in response to GSNO treatment was accompanied by an increase in Herc6 protein, an E3 ubiquitin ligase. Moreover, GSNO treatment resulted in the translocation of GADPH from the cytosol to the nucleus and its subsequent accumulation. These results suggest that NO stress-induced apoptosis may be associated with the nuclear translocation and accumulation of GAPDH in RGC-5 cells.

• 생명과학회지
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• 제17권8호통권88호
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• pp.1068-1074
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• 2007

파브알부민(pa π albumin)은 망막의 다양한 세포타입에서 분포하고 있다. 본 연구팀은 이전연구에서 박쥐 망막의 내핵층에서의 파브알부민의 분포를 보고하였다. 현재 연구에서 본 연구팀은 한국관박쥐 (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum) 망막의 신경절세포층에 존재하는 파브알부민을 함유하는 신경세포를 규명하였고, 이들 세포의 분포양상을 조사하였다. 실험 결과,파브알부민의 면역반응성은 신경절세포층의 다수 세포에서 발견되었으며, 이들 세포는 주로 중간형 이상 크기의 세포체를 가지고 있었다. 조사된 세포체의 직경은 12.35 - 19.12 ${\mu}m$ 의 범위를 가지며 (n=166), 신경섬유층의 섬유 역시 염색되는 것으로 보아, 파브알부민을 함유하는 신경절세포는 대부분이 중간형이상 크기의 신경절세포임을 뒷받침하고 있다. NND (nearest neighbor distance) 분석을 통해서 본, 평균 NND는 59.57 에서 62.45 ${\mu}m$ 로 나타났으며, 평균 RI (regularity index) 는 2.95 ${\pm}$ 0.3 (mean${\pm}$s.d., n=4) 으로 계산되었다. 이를 종합해보면, 파브알부민은 한국관박쥐 망막의 신경절세포층에서 중간형이상 크기의 신경절세포에서 주로 발현하고 있으며, 이들은 규칙적인 배열을 가진 채 잘 조직화된 분포양상을 보여주고 있음을 알 수 있었다. 이러한 결과들은, 아직까지 명확하게 규명되어 있지 못한 박쥐의 시각에 대한 이해에 중요하게 적용될 수 있을 것이라고 사료된다.

• 한국생명과학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국생명과학회 2007년도 제48회 학술심포지움 및 추계국제학술대회
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• pp.71.1-71.1
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• 2007

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• 대한수의학회지
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• 제29권1호
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• pp.1-6
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• 1989

The number and distribution of the retinal ganglion cells in the 2 years old Korean native cattle was determined from whole fiat mounted preparation stained with methylene blue and thionin. The results were summarized as follows. 1. The total number of retinal ganglion cells was estimated to be 3,085,200 in the bovine retina ranging from $2,214mm^2$ in total area. 2. Visual streak was recognized at the area 2.5mm superior to the optic disc and ganglion cell density drops off rapidly to the directions superior to and inferior to the visual streak. 3. Area centralis ($6,800cells/mm^2$) was located at the area 10mm temporally from the point of 3mm superior to the optic disc. 4. The number of ${\alpha}-type$ ganglion cells (above $15{\mu}$) was 57,000 in the bovine retina and ${\alpha}-type$ ganglion cells constituted 18.5% of the total cells. 5. The relative frequency of ${\alpha}-type$ ganglion cells was higher in the peripheral regions than in the visual streak, especially higher in the superior-temporal quadrant than in other region of the bovine retina.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• 제13권3호
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• pp.221-227
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• 2009

For successful restoration of visual function by a visual neural prosthesis such as retinal implant, electrical stimulation should evoke neural responses so that the informat.ion on visual input is properly represented. A stimulation strategy, which means a method for generating stimulation waveforms based on visual input, should be developed for this purpose. We proposed to use the decoding of visual input from retinal ganglion cell (RGC) responses for the evaluation of stimulus encoding strategy. This is based on the assumption that reliable encoding of visual information in RGC responses is required to enable successful visual perception. The main purpose of this study was to determine the influence of inter-dependence among stimulated RGCs activities on decoding accuracy. Light intensity variations were decoded from multiunit RGC spike trains using an optimal linear filter. More accurate decoding was possible when different types of RGCs were used together as input. Decoding accuracy was enhanced with independently firing RGCs compared to synchronously firing RGCs. This implies that stimulation of independently-firing RGCs and RGCs of different types may be beneficial for visual function restoration by retinal prosthesis.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• 제27권6호
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• pp.541-553
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• 2023

Retinal prostheses have shown some clinical success in restoring vision in patients with retinitis pigmentosa. However, the post-implantation visual acuity does not exceed that of legal blindness. The reason for the poor visual acuity might be that (1) degenerate retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) are less responsive to electrical stimulation than normal RGCs, and (2) electrically-evoked RGC spikes show a more widespread not focal response. The single-biphasic pulse electrical stimulation, commonly used in artificial vision, has limitations in addressing these issues. In this study, we propose the benefit of multiple consecutive-biphasic pulse stimulation. We used C57BL/6J mice and C3H/HeJ (rd1) mice for the normal retina and retinal degeneration model. An 8 × 8 multi-electrode array was used to record electrically-evoked RGC spikes. We compared RGC responses when increasing the amplitude of a single biphasic pulse versus increasing the number of consecutive biphasic pulses at the same stimulus charge. Increasing the amplitude of a single biphasic pulse induced more RGC spike firing while the spatial resolution of RGC populations decreased. For multiple consecutive-biphasic pulse stimulation, RGC firing increased as the number of pulses increased, and the spatial resolution of RGC populations was well preserved even up to 5 pulses. Multiple consecutive-biphasic pulse stimulation using two or three pulses in degenerate retinas induced as much RGC spike firing as in normal retinas. These findings suggest that the newly proposed multiple consecutive-biphasic pulse stimulation can improve the visual acuity in prosthesis-implanted patients.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• 제48권2호
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• pp.163-170
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• 2024

Background: Mechanisms of synaptic plasticity in retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) are complex and the current knowledge cannot explain. Growth and regeneration of dendrites together with synaptic formation are the most important parameters for evaluating the cellular protective effects of various molecules. The effect of ginsenoside Rg1 (Rg1) on the growth of retinal ganglion cell processes has been poorly understood. Therefore, we investigated the effect of ginsenoside Rg1 on the neurite growth of RGCs. Methods: Expression of proteins and mRNA were detected by Western blot and qPCR. cAMP levels were determined by ELISA. In vivo effects of Rg1 on RGCs were evaluated by hematoxylin and eosin, and immunohistochemistry staining. Results: This study found that Rg1 promoted the growth and synaptic plasticity of RGCs neurite by activating the cAMP/PKA/CREB pathways. Meanwhile, Rg1 upregulated the expression of GAP43, Rac1 and PAX6, which are closely related to the growth of neurons. Meantime, H89, an antagonist of PKA, could block this effect of Rg1. In addition, we preliminarily explored the effect of Rg1 on enhancing the glycolysis of RGCs, which could be one of the mechanisms for its neuroprotective effects. Conclusion: Rg1 promoted neurite growth of RGCs through cAMP/PKA/CREB pathways. This study may lay a foundation for its clinical use of optic nerve diseases in the future.