Muller Glial Cell-Provided Cellular Light Guidance through the Vital Guinea-Pig Retina

In vertebrate eyes, images are projected onto an inverted retina where light passes all retinal layers on its way to the photoreceptor cells. Light scattering within this tissue should impair vision. We show that radial glial (Muller) cells in the living retina minimize intraretinal light scatter and conserve the diameter of a beam that hits a single Muller cell endfoot. Thus, light arrives at individual photoreceptors with high intensity. This leads to an optimized signal/noise ratio, which increases visual sensitivity and contrast. Moreover, we show that the ratio between Muller cells and cones-responsible for acute vision-is roughly 1. This suggests that high spatiotemporal resolution may be achieved by each cone receiving its part of the image via its individual Muller cell-light guide.