A novel motion direction detection mechanism based on dendritic computation of direction-selective ganglion cells

The visual system plays a vital role when the brain receives and processes information. Approximately ninety percent of the information received by the brain comes from the visual system, and motion detection is a crucial part of processing visual information. To further understand the generation of direction selectivity, we propose a novel apparent motion detection mechanism using direction-selective ganglion cells (DSGCs). Considering the simplicity of neural computation, each neuron is responsible for detection in a specific direction. For example, eight neurons are employed to detect movements in eight directions, and local information is collected by scanning. The global motion direction is obtained according to the degree of activation of the neurons. We report that this method not only has striking biological similarities with hypercomplex retinal cells, but can also make accurate discriminations. The pioneering mechanism may lead to a new technique for understanding more complex principles of the visual nervous system.