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The electrotonic architecture of the retinal microvasculature: modulation by angiotensin II

Non‐technical summary  In the quest to understand how the circulatory system adjusts microvascular function to meet local metabolic demand, we focused on the retina whose circulatory system consists exclusively of microvessels. Since voltages induced by extracellular signals play a key role in generating vasomotor responses, we characterized the movement of voltage within the retinal microvasculature. To do this, we quantified voltage transmission between pairs of recording pipettes located at well‐defined sites in capillary/arteriole plexuses freshly isolated from the rat retina. We found that the retinal microvasculature is not simply a homogeneous syncytium, but has a complex electrotonic architecture with differing efficacies of voltage transmission. Furthermore, we discovered that the electrotonic architecture is not static, but is modulated by angiotensin. This newly appreciated action reveals that vasoactive signals can alter the functional organization of the microvasculature and, thereby, regulate the spatial extent of the circulatory system's response to voltage‐changing inputs.