Influence of retinal ganglion cell morphology on neuronal response properties - a simulation study

Retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) in the vertebrate retina display a wide range of dendritic morphologies. In order to isolate the contribution of this physical property, we employed a neural morphology generator to study the differences in firing patterns among RGCs with different dendritic geometrical factors but with identical voltage-gated channel kinetics and distributions. Our results suggest that cell morphology alone is sufficient to generate quantitatively distinct electrophysiological responses, serving as a basis for understanding how structural factors influence RGC behavior.