The many roles of starburst amacrine cells

Starburst amacrine cells release two classical neurotransmitters, ACh and GABA. In a tour de force of paired-cell recording, Zheng et al. now show that the starburst cells are mutually excitatory during early development but mutually inhibitory in adult animals. The change occurs by remodeling of both the cholinergic and the GABAergic synapses between starburst cells. The finding gives a precise mechanistic basis for the developmental waves of activity in the retina.

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