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. 2007 Jan 11;580(Pt 1):23–29. doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.2006.125302

Figure 1. Basic glutamatergic circuitry of the mammalian retina.

Figure 1

Synapses that are considered in this mini-review occur sequentially in the retinal circuitry and are numbered (1–3). Cones make synapses with two classes of cone bipolar cell (CB): ON and OFF CBs. ON and OFF CBs make excitatory synapses with ganglion cells (GCs), the output cells of the retina. (1) Rods make synapses with an ON bipolar cell, the rod bipolar (RB), and with a subset of OFF CBs. Transmission between rods and RBs is mediated by metabotropic GluRs; ionotropic GluRs mediate transmission between rods and OFF CBs. (2) RBs contact AII amacrine cells, which are coupled by gap junctions to some types of ON CBs. RB output is transferred into ON CBs, thereby depolarizing their terminals. (3) ON CBs make synapses with ON GCs. See Field et al. (2004) for a more complete discussion.