Sustained and transient discharges of retinal ganglion cells during spontaneous eye movements of cat.

Discharges of 223 retinal ganglion cells during spontaneous eye movements (saccades) across a stationary grating pattern were studied in chronically prepared cats. Of these 83 showed sustained responses to local differences in luminance of the grating stripes (S-units); 84 showed transient responses to saccades and did not register local differences in luminance (T-units); and 56 showed mixed responses, i.e., transient responses to saccades and sustained firings in response to local luminance (M-units). When tested with diffuse light, 93.9% of the S-units showed either ON-sustained or OFF-sustained responses; 95.2% of the T-units showed either ON-transient, OFF-transient, or ON-OFF-transient responses; and 50% of the M-units showed ON-OFF responses. In the overall responses properties, most S-units corresponded to the X-cells, most T-units to the Y-cells of retinal ganglion cells previously known from acute experiments. Under normal conditions of active eye movements, the major function of the S-units would be to register the differences in luminance in their receptive fields, and subserve the mechansim of form recognition. The major function of the T-units would be to register information related to quick image motion, induced either by eye or object movements, and subserve the mechanism of detecting the dynamic aspects of visual stimuli. The other important functions of the T-units are their possible participation in the afferent routes for two recently proposed mechanisms; one for goal-directed saccades and the other for saccadic suppression. The M-units would possess the functions of both S- and T-units.