Dutch Focus
The retina is integral to human sight. However, science lacks a comprehensive understanding of how this visual sensor selectively ‘codes’ and shares its data with the brain. In response, pioneering EU research is currently revealing the intricate mechanisms at work, and creating new therapeutic possibilities for treating degenerative retinal conditions and blindness
Deciphering the retinal code
“Incredibly, only one per cent of the information captured by the eye is actually transmitted to the brain,” explains Professor
Maarten Kamermans. As
professor of neurophysiology and sensory physiology at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Kamermans is engaged in a long-term research programme that seeks to better
understand mechanisms work. Kamermans’ Via the iris and mediated by the lens of
how retinal team at
the Retinal Signal Processing Lab are examining how characteristics such as luminance, contrast, colour, and movement are coded in the retina and then decoded by
the brain, eventually perception by the mind. leading to
the eye, our external world is projected onto the retina. The retina subsequently processes this information. It is this process which to a large extent controls the way we visually perceive. A sensitive layer of neuronal tissue, the retina, lines the eye’s inner surface. The photoreceptors are the light sensitive neurons within the retina. Two main types of photoreceptors exist, which respond differently to varying levels of
illumination. Rods function only in
poorly lit (night time) conditions and can provide only black and white vision. Cones, by contrast, mediate vision in bright light (day time), and create our impressions of
colour. Data received by these photoreceptors is processed by the retinal neural network and finally transmitted onwards to the brain via the optic nerve, where it reinterpreted
is to create the mental
representations we experience as vision. One of the most important topics studied
by the Dutch researchers is the means through which horizontal communicate
with cells photoreceptors.
Horizontal cells are a type of laterally interconnecting neurons, located below the photoreceptors, and play an important role in visual perception. “Science has so far failed to resolve the complex relationship between horizontal cells and cones,” says
“Nightblind patients
were studied alongside mice and zebrafish
specimens that shared similar mutations”
30 Insight Publishers | Projects
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68