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Mysteries of colour vision revealed as scientists map out eye's neural network
http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-mysteries-colour-vision-revealed-scientists.html
November 5, 2010
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists, using sophisticated recording equipment,
have mapped the neural circuitry involved in processing colour vision
in humans for the first time.
The breakthrough by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological
Studies in California, and the University of California reveals how
the different cone photoreceptor cells within the retina communicate
with the output cells to build up a colour picture.
Dr Keith Mathieson, a research fellow within the in the School of
Physics & Astronomy at the University of Glasgow but currently based
at Stanford University and the University of California Santa Cruz,
played a key role in the research through leading the development of
the 519-electrode array used to measure activity in the cells analysed
in this study.
He said: "To develop new therapies for vision-related problems it is
necessary to fully understand how the retina works. This research
gives us a much greater insight into the circuitry of the retina and
is an important development for neuroscience."
Vision is possible thanks in part to the retina, which is a layered
structure of neural tissue with input cells (photoreceptors),
processing cells and output (ganglion) cells.
The photoreceptors are made up of two types: rods and cones, which see
in black and white and colour respectively. Colour perception arises
from the comparison of signals received by different cone cells, which
differentiate between wavelengths (colours) of light. How these
signals are combined by the retina and transmitted by the ganglion
cells to the brain has been the subject of debate for years.
Now the puzzle has been solved as researchers reveal for the first
time the pattern of connectivity between the cone receptor cells and
the ganglion cells.
The electrode array, which made this study possible, was developed
over five years at the James Watt Nanofabrication Centre in
conjunction with the University of California at Santa Cruz and AGH
Krakow.
The system records neural signals at high speed (over ten million
samples each second) and with fine spatial detail, sufficient to
detect even a locally complete population of the tiny and densely
spaced output cells known as 'midget' retinal ganglion cells.
Dr Mathieson added: "The electrode array we developed enabled us to
measure the retinal output signals of hundreds of cells simultaneously
and create a map of the input-output relationship at an unprecedented
resolution and scale."
Dr Deborah Gunning, who helped develop this technology over the course
of her PhD studies at Glasgow, said "This is an exciting example of
interdisciplinary science with experts in neuroscience,
nanoengineering, physics and electronics combining to perform
cutting-edge science."
As a consequence of the technology's success, Dr Gunning has gone on
to win a prestigious RAEng/EPSRC fellowship, where she plans to
diversify and study the fundamental behaviour of networks of neurons
in more complex structures in the brain.
The research paper, 'Functional connectivity in the retina at the
resolution of photoreceptors' is published in the latest edition of
the journal Nature.
Provided by University of Glasgow
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"Ethics" is simply a last-gasp attempt by deist conservatives and
orthodox dogmatics to keep humanity in ignorance and obscurantism,
through the well tried fermentation of fear, the fear of science and
new technologies.
There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history,
it is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations.
On the contrary, let us embrace Science and the new technologies
unfettered, for it is these which will liberate mankind from the
myth of god, and free us from our age old fears, from disease,
death and the sweat of labour.
Rael
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