Calculating the proportions of each cell type in the retina, the team estimated that about 100,000 guinea pig ganglion cells transmit about 875,000 bits of information per second. Because sluggish cells are more numerous, they account for most of the information. With about 1,000,000 ganglion cells, the human retina would transmit data at roughly the rate of an Ethernet connection, or 10 million bits per second.

"Spikes are metabolically expensive to produce," says lead author Kristin Koch, a PhD student in the lab of senior author Peter Sterling, PhD, Professor of Neuroscience. "Our findings hint that sluggish cells might be `cheaper,' metabolically speaking, because they send more information per spike. If a message must be sent at a high rate, the brain uses the brisk channels. But if a message can afford to be sent more slowly, the brain uses the sluggish channels and pays a lower metabolic cost."


"In terms of sending visual information to the brain, these brisk cells are the Fedex of the optic system, versus the sluggish cells, which are the equivalent of the U.S. mail," notes Sterling. "Sluggish cells have not been studied that closely until now. The amazing thing is that when it's all said and done, the sluggish cells turned out to be the most important in terms of the amount of information sent."

Study co-authors are Judith McLean and Michael A. Freed, from Penn, and Ronen Segev and Michael J. Berry III, from Princeton University. The research was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

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PENN Medicine is a $2.9 billion enterprise dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and high-quality patient care. PENN Medicine consists of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System.

Penn's School of Medicine is ranked #2 in the nation for receipt of NIH research funds; and ranked #3 in the nation in U.S. News & World Report's most recent ranking of top research-oriented medical schools. Supporting 1,400 fulltime faculty and 700 students, the School of Medicine is recognized worldwide for its superior education and training of the next generation of physician-scientists and leaders of academic medicine.
The University of Pennsylvania Health System includes three hospitals, all of which have received numerous national patient-care honors [Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania Hospital, the nation's first hospital; and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center]; a faculty practice plan; a primary-care provider network; two multispecialty satellite facilities; and home care and hospice.

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