The complexity of the simplex retina: Identifying bipolar cell diversity in little skate’s retina
By: Emma Alejandra Alvarez Castaneda
Department: Biology
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Ivan Anastassov
The fish L. erinacea (Little skate) has a distinctive retina, which can perform the same visual functions as our retinas, but with one type of light sensitive cell (rod photoreceptor), instead of two (rod and cone photoreceptors). Most vertebrates have a duplex retina, which uses rods and cones to capture and respond to the light, and bipolar cells to transmit the signal between photoreceptors and ganglion cells. Our model system, the skate retina, is able to respond to bright and dim light conditions with only rods. We have very little information about this rod-only retina, and its structure is not well understood. In my research, I will determine if there is diversity in bipolar cell populations in the skate retina. I am approaching this with different tracing techniques to identify bipolar cells and their locations. I hypothesize that the simplex skate retina will have specialized bipolar cell types, just like a duplex retina. A great part of the skate retina’s anatomy and physiology will be well defined once this research is completed, which is important, since bipolar cells play a crucial part on the information flow from the photoreceptors to the brain.