Retinal ganglion cells spontaneously fire action potentials at a base rate while at rest. In the extreme periphery (ends of the retina), a single ganglion cell will receive information from many thousands of photoreceptors. In the fovea (center of the retina), a single ganglion cell will communicate with as few as five photoreceptors. However, these numbers vary greatly among individuals and as a function of retinal location. With about 125 million photoreceptors per retina, on average each retinal ganglion cell receives inputs from about 100 rods and cones. There are about 1.2 to 1.5 million retinal ganglion cells in the human retina. A small percentage of retinal ganglion cells contribute little or nothing to vision, but are themselves photosensitive their axons form the retinohypothalamic tract and contribute to circadian rhythms and pupillary light reflex, the resizing of the pupil. These axons form the optic nerve, optic chiasm, and optic tract. Retinal ganglion cells vary significantly in terms of their size, connections, and responses to visual stimulation but they all share the defining property of having a long axon that extends into the brain. Retinal ganglion cells collectively transmit image-forming and non-image forming visual information from the retina to several regions in the thalamus, hypothalamus, and mesencephalon, or midbrain. It receives visual information from photoreceptors via two intermediate neuron types: bipolar cells and amacrine cells. A retinal ganglion cell (RGC) is a type of neuron located near the inner surface (the ganglion cell layer) of the retina of the eye.
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