Responses and receptive fields of amacrine cells and ganglion cells in the salamander retina

AbstractRetinal amacrine cells (ACs) and ganglion cells (GCs) have been shown to display large morphological diversity, and here we show that four types of ACs and three types of GCs exhibit physiologically-distinguishable properties. They are the sustained ON ACs; sustained OFF ACs; transient ON–OFF ACs; transient ON–OFF ACs with wide receptive fields; sustained ON-center/OFF-surround GCs; sustained OFF-center/ON-surround GCs and transient ON–OFF GCs. By comparing response waveforms, receptive fields and relative rod/cone inputs of ACs and GCs with the corresponding parameters of various types of the presynaptic bipolar cells (BCs), we analyze how different types of BCs mediate synaptic inputs to various ACs and GCs. Although more types of third-order retinal neurons may be identified by more refined classification criteria, our observations suggest that many morphologically-distinct ACs and GCs share very similar physiological responses

Antioxidant activities of protein hydrolysates obtained from the housefly larvae

The housefly is an important resource insect and the housefly larvae are ideal source of food additives. The housefly larvae protein hydrolysates were obtained by enzymatic hydrolysis by alcalase and neutral proteinase. Their antioxidant activities were investigated, including the superoxide and hydroxyl radicalscavenging activity, 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) scavenging activity, reducing power and metal chelating activity. The antioxidant activities of both hydrolysates increased with their increasing concentrations. The alcalase hydrolysate (AH) showed higher scavenging activities against hydroxyl radical and superoxide anion radical at low concentrations and higher metal-chelating activity than the neutral proteinase hydrolysate (NPH). The NPH exhibited higher scavenging activity against DPPH free radical and higher reducing power than the AH. Both hydrolysates showed more than 50% superoxide anion radical-scavenging activity at 10 μg/mL. These results indicate that both housefly larvae protein hydrolysates display high antioxidant activities and they could serve as potential natural antioxidant food additives

'Ruiduwuheyi Seedless': A new late-maturing seedless table grape

Research Note

'Aishenmeigui': An extremely early maturing seedless grape with muscat flavor

Research Not

'Ruiduxiangyu': A new table grape with muscat flavor

Research Note