RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Divisive suppression explains high-precision firing and contrast adaptation in retinal ganglion cells JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 064592 DO 10.1101/064592 A1 Yuwei Cui A1 Yanbin V. Wang A1 Silvia J. H. Park A1 Jonathan B. Demb A1 Daniel A. Butts YR 2016 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/07/19/064592.abstract AB Visual processing depends on specific computations implemented by complex neural circuits. Here, we present a circuit-inspired model of retinal ganglion cell computation, targeted to explain their temporal dynamics and adaptation to contrast. To localize the sources of such processing, we used recordings at the levels of synaptic input and spiking output in the in vitro mouse retina. We found that an ON-Alpha ganglion cell’s excitatory synaptic inputs were described by a divisive interaction between excitation and delayed suppression, which explained nonlinear processing already present in ganglion cell inputs. Ganglion cell output was further shaped by spike generation mechanisms. The full model accurately predicted spike responses with unprecedented millisecond precision, and accurately described contrast adaption of the spike train. These results demonstrate how circuit and cell-intrinsic mechanisms interact for ganglion cell function and, more generally, illustrate the power of circuit-inspired modeling of sensory processing.