👁️ Before the eyes even open, the retina is already “talking” to the brain. But what happens in neurodevelopmental disorders with visual impairment? In a new Frontiers in Neuroscience paper (@FrontNeurosci), Gupta et al. investigate how loss of Ube3a, the gene underlying Angelman syndrome, affects spontaneous retinal activity during early development, a particularly interesting question given the visual abnormalities commonly associated with the disorder. Before vision is fully established, developing retinas generate retinal waves, coordinated bursts of neuronal activity that travel across the tissue and help guide the wiring of the visual system. Using the MaxOne High-Density Microelectrode Array (HD-MEA) System, the team recorded 32 ex vivo retinas from wild-type (WT) and Angelman-model mouse pups. Angelman-model retinas showed reduced retinal wave frequency and lower overall RGC activity, indicating less patterned activity during this critical developmental period. But what about the waves that did occur? They were largely normal: wave propagation speed, duration, area, shape, local synchrony, and distance-dependent functional connectivity were comparable to WT controls. This suggests that Ube3a deficiency primarily disrupts the initiation of retinal waves rather than their ability to propagate across the retinal network. This is a nice example of how the spatial and temporal resolution of MaxOne can move beyond detecting “more or less activity” and reveal which specific property of a developing neural circuit is altered in disease. 👉 Read the full publication here – mxwbio.com/resources/frontie… 👏 Congratulations to Rishikesh Kumar Gupta, Alexander J. Fisch, Fernanda S. Orsi, and Alexandre Tiriac from Vanderbilt University (@VanderbiltU) and Vanderbilt University Medical Center (@VUMCDiscoveries) 🇺🇸 #HDMEA #Retina #Neurodevelopment #DiseaseModeling #Neuroscience Supplementary Video S1 from Gupta et al., Frontiers in Neuroscience (2026). DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2026.1895084. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.