Lea Ankri

• Master of Science
• PhD Student at Weizmann Institute of Science

Here we present a protocol for preparation of acute brain slices. This procedure is a critical element for electrophysiological patch-clamp experiments that largely determines the quality of results. It has been shown that omitting the cooling step during cutting procedure is beneficial in obtaining healthy slices and cells, especially when dealing...

Retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) typically respond to light stimulation over their spatially restricted receptive field. Using large-scale recordings in the mouse retina, we show that a subset of non- direction-selective (DS) RGCs exhibit asymmetric activity, selective to motion direction, in response to a stimulus crossing an area far beyond the clas...

A key feature of the receptive field of neurons in the visual system is their centre–surround antagonism, whereby the centre and the surround exhibit responses of opposite polarity. This organization is thought to enhance visual acuity, but whether and how such antagonism plays a role in more complex processing remains poorly understood. Here, we i...

The mammalian retina is considered an autonomous circuit, yet work dating back to Ramon y Cajal indicates that it receives inputs from the brain. How such inputs affect retinal processing has remained unknown. We confirmed brain-to-retina projections of histaminergic neurons from the mouse hypothalamus. Histamine application ex vivo altered the act...

The mammalian retina is considered an autonomous circuit, yet work dating back to Ramon y Cajal indicates that it receives inputs from the brain. How such inputs affect retinal processing has remained unknown. We identified brain-to-retina projections of histaminergic neurons from the mouse hypothalamus, which densely innervated the dorsal retina....

Retinal direction-selectivity originates in starburst amacrine cells (SACs), which display a centrifugal preference, responding with greater depolarization to a stimulus expanding from soma to dendrites than to a collapsing stimulus. Various mechanisms were hypothesized to underlie SAC centrifugal preference, but dissociating them is experimentally...

Retinal direction-selectivity originates in starburst amacrine cells (SACs), which display a centrifugal preference, responding with greater depolarization to a stimulus expanding from soma to dendrites than to a collapsing stimulus. Various mechanisms were hypothesized to underlie SAC centrifugal preference, but dissociating them is experimentally...

An antagonistic center-surround receptive field is a key feature in sensory processing, but how it contributes to specific computations such as direction selectivity is often unknown. Retinal On-starburst amacrine cells (SACs), which mediate direction selectivity in direction-selective ganglion cells (DSGCs), exhibit antagonistic receptive field or...

A key feature in sensory processing is center-surround receptive field antagonism. Retinal direction-selectivity (DS) relies on asymmetric inhibition from starburst amacrine cells (SAC) to direction selective ganglion cells (DSGC). SAC exhibit antagonistic center-surround, depolarizing to light increments and decrements in their center and surround...

The cerebellum, a crucial center for motor coordination, is composed of a cortex and several nuclei. The main mode of interaction between these two parts is considered to be formed by the inhibitory control of the nuclei by cortical Purkinje neurons. We now amend this view by showing that inhibitory GABA-glycinergic neurons of the cerebellar nuclei...