Electrical Activity of Single Neurons in the Frog’s Retina

Abstract

After a long lasting controversy concerning the origin of the ERG, opinions of investigators now appear to be approaching the general agreement that the major source of the fast components of ERG, or PII and PIII of Granit, is not in the receptors themselves but anterior to them. However, the allocation of the ERG in the retina is still very incomplete, since no one has succeeded yet in identifying the cell type that is responsible for the generation of ERG, nor in clarifying the mechanism of its generation. As a step to enter into these problems, we have been working during the last one year on the frog’s retina, trying to obtain intracellularly some responses that could reasonably be correlated with the ERG. A preliminary report has been submitted for publication by Naka, Inoma, Kosugi and Tong (1960). For this kind of experiment, one needs pipettes much more slender than the ordinary superfine micropipettes, as the cells to be impaled are small.

From the Department of Physiology, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.

This research work was done with the support of Research Grant No. MG1–60–1 (M 26–59–26) (Tsuneo Tomita, Responsible Investigator) from US Army Research and Development Group, Far East (9852).