Using advanced electrical recording techniques, researchers from UQ’s Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) discovered how nerve cells in the eye’s retina were integral<\/strong> to the process.<\/p>\n Professor Stephen Williams said that dendrites<\/strong> — the branching processes of a neuron that conduct electrical signals toward the cell body — played a critical role in decoding images.<\/p>\n “The retina is not a simple camera, but actively processes visual information in a neuronal network, to compute abstractions that are relayed to the higher brain,” Professor Williams said.<\/p>\n “Previously, dendrites of neurons were thought to be passive input areas.<\/p>\n “Our research has found that dendrites also have powerful processing capabilities<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n Co-author Dr Simon Kalita-de Croft said dendritic processing enabled the retina to convert and refine visual cues into electrical signals.<\/p>\n “We now know that movement of light — say, a flying bird, or a passing car — gets converted into an electrical signal by dendritic processing in the retina,” Dr Kalita-de Croft said.<\/p>\n “The discovery bridges the gap between our understanding of the anatomy and physiology of neuronal circuits in the retina.”<\/p>\n Professor Williams said the ability of dendrites in the retina to process visual information depended on the release of two neurotransmitters — chemical messengers — from a single class of cell.<\/p>\n “These signals are integrated by the output neurons of the retina,” Professor Williams said.<\/p>\n “Determining how the neural circuits in the retina process information can help us understand computational principles operational throughout the brain.<\/p>\n “Excitingly, our discovery provides a new template for how neuronal computations may be implemented in brain circuits.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n From the\u00a0University of Queensland press release: The mystery of how human eyes compute the direction of moving light has been made clearer by scientists at The University of Queensland. Using… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,324],"tags":[42,93,469,41],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21698"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21698"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21755,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21698\/revisions\/21755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/eyesight_vision.jpg\")
The mystery of how human eyes compute the direction of moving light<\/strong> has been made clearer by scientists at The University of Queensland.<\/p>\n