10/n Mechanistically, we propose that ON stimulation in the surround may trigger crossover inhibition that suppresses wide-field GABAergic amacrine cells—normally responsible for surround suppression—thereby disinhibiting distant OFF ganglion cells.

8/n So we took it further — we hyperpolarized AII amacrines optogenetically.
When we did, the surround responses in OFF ganglion cells dropped significantly.

6/n This setup let us directly stimulate individual rod bipolar cells while recording retinal output in real time.

Result? Activating single RBCs drove responses in OFF ganglion cells far beyond their receptive field center 💥