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Updated: Aug 6, 2026

Vibratome Sectioning Mouse Retina to Prepare Photoreceptor Cultures
Published on: December 22, 2014
Dendrites of rod bipolar cells sprout in normal aging retina
Lauren C Liets1, Kasra Eliasieh, Deborah A van der List
1Section of Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
Abstract:
The aging nervous system is known to manifest a variety of degenerative and regressive events. Here we report the unexpected growth of dendrites in the retinas of normal old mice. The dendrites of many rod bipolar cells in aging mice were observed to extend well beyond their normal strata within the outer plexiform layer to innervate the outer nuclear layer where they appeared to form contacts with the spherules of rod photoreceptors. Such dendritic sprouting increased with age and was evident at all retinal eccentricities. These results provide evidence of retinal plasticity associated with normal aging.
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