Spatial spread of adaptation within the cone network of turtle retina

1. The spatial characteristics of adaptation were studied in the red-sensitive cones of the snapping turtle retina using intracellular microelectrodes. Light responses elicited with slit-shaped test and adapting stimuli revealed that test response amplitudes and adaptation decline similarly with distance from the impaled cone. The spatial spread of adaptation and the light response cannot be accounted for by scattered light and must therefore result from electrical coupling between cones. 2. The reduction in the amplitude of the test response correlated strongly with the magnitude of the sustained hyperpolarization induced by the adapting fields. This dependence of adaptation on membrane potential was independent of the spatial configuration of the adapting field. 3. The time courses of flash responses were monotonically related to the membrane potential induced by adapting stimuli and were also independent of adapting field configuration. 4. Adapting slits imaged on the cone receptive field centres uniformly depressed sensitivity without altering the shape of the field or its exponential fall-off. Since the membrane potential evoked by the adapting slit falls off exponentially, the invariance of receptive field shape implies that the spread of adaptation cannot be attributed solely to voltage-dependent desensitization of the transduction apparatus in the cones. Therefore a substantial part of the membrane potential dependency of adaptation probably results from a shunting of signals across the plasma membrane of the cone. 5. Full field backgrounds depressed sensitivity but did not alter the receptive field profiles. On the model of electrical coupling proposed by Lamb & Simon (1976), this suggests that to the extent that the voltage-dependent desensitization results from an increased conductance and hence an increased shunt of the signals at the plasma membrane, there must be a concomitant increase in the conductance of the electrical pathways linking cones to one another.