The Standard Model of the Retina

TL;DR

This paper presents a comprehensive 'standard model' of the retina that explains diverse neural computations and serves as a baseline for future research in systems neuroscience.

Contribution

It introduces a unified standard model of the retina that accounts for various phenomena and discusses the conditions enabling its development.

Findings

The standard model explains many aspects of early visual processing.

It accounts for diverse neural computations with parameter variations.

Serves as a baseline for future retinal research.

Abstract

The scientific study of the retina has reached a remarkable state of completion. We can now explain many aspects of early visual processing based on a relatively simple model of neural circuitry in the retina. The same model, with different parameters, produces a great diversity of neural computations. In this article I lay out what that "standard model" is and how it accounts for such a diversity of phenomena. The emergence of such a powerful standard model is unique in systems neuroscience, and I consider what conditions made it possible. The standard model now serves as a baseline from which to organize future retinal research, either by testing the model's assumptions directly, or by identifying phenomena that remain unexplained.