Translations:Ganglion Cell/13/en

Cajal in his monumental work on Golgi staining of the vertebrate retina was able to classify many different varieties of ganglion cell based on form (dendritic morphology), extent (cell body and dendritic tree size), and number of sublayers in which they arborize (stratification levels in the inner plexiform layer). He considered the retina to be remarkably uniform across all vertebrates differing only in respect to rod and cone specializations for the visual sense of the animal. Looking at Cajals (1892) drawings of dog ganglion cells as compared frog ganglion cell for example the former seem simpler in form than the latter cells but we actually now know that there is a common evolutionary path taken by different ganglion cell types so that different morphological and functional classes are similar throughout the species. For example the large ganglion cells, with open radiate branching patterns, process fast, transient impulse trains and in all vertebrate retinas are concerned with motion detection and alerting the animal to threatening, moving visual imagery. While small bushy ganglion cell types are concerned with processing small stationary, fine detail in tonically activated messages in all species.