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NEI Research News

Thanks to the work of NEI scientists and grantees, we’re constantly learning new information about the causes and treatment of vision disorders. Get the latest updates about their work — along with other news about NEI.

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Object motion and amacrine cells in retina

Circuit in the Eye Relies on Built-In Delay to See Small Moving Objects

When we move our head, the whole visual world moves across our eyes. Yet we can still make out a bee buzzing by or a hawk flying overhead, thanks to unique cells in the eye called object motion sensors.
A microglial cell (green) extends spider-like arms to capture and consume rod photoreceptor cells (blue). Credit: Dr. Wai Wong, NEI.

In Blinding Eye Disease, Trash-Collecting Cells go Awry, Accelerate Damage

Spider-like cells inside the brain, spinal cord and eye hunt for invaders, capturing and then devouring them. These cells, called microglia, often play a beneficial role by helping to clear trash and protect the central nervous system against infection.
Grantee News

Eye’s motion detection sensors identified

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a neural circuit in the retina that enable the eye to detect movement.
A pronghorn antelope in the Grand Teton National Park captured by a DSLR camera using the image stabilization function (left). The image on the right was artificially blurred to simulate one’s vision without the work of direction-sensitive ganglion cells. Photo is courtesy of Lu O. Sun, Johns Hopkins Medicine.

The Brain’s Autofocus System Helps Stabilize Vision Despite Motion

Much like the automatic focus of a camera, our eyes and brains must constantly recalibrate so that we can get a clear view of the changing—and always moving—world around us.
Grantee News

Mind Over Matter

Through a clinical collaboration, a 34-year-old paralyzed from the neck down is the first person in the world to have a neural prosthetic device implanted in a region of the brain where intentions are made.
Grantee News

Plugging In Your Vision's Autostabilization Feature

New research, published online May 7 in the journal Neuron, describes how axons of specialized nerve cells find their way through the brain’s maze of neurons to make the right connection.
Grantee News

LSU Health New Orleans Makes Discovery Key to Preventing Blindness and Stroke Devastation

Researchers at the Louisiana State University Neuroscience Center of Excellence have discovered gene interactions that determine whether cells live or die in such conditions as age-related macular degeneration and ischemic stroke.
Grantee News

Results challenge conventional wisdom about where the brain begins processing visual information

Using high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a team of researchers from Vanderbilt and Boston universities, have discovered that more complex processing occurs in the initial stages of the visual system than previously thought.
If a study participant were instructed to pay attention to “scenes” and he was attending well, he would be shown the top image as a reward. As his attention lapsed, the middle and bottom images would be shown. The face in the photograph is that of the study’s first author, Megan deBettencourt, a doctoral candidate at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute.

Brain Training May Bolster Visual Attention

People are bad at staying focused. We’ve all had our minds wander when we try to concentrate on a task that requires paying close attention but isn’t all that engaging.
Grantee News

Elderly brains learn, but maybe too much

A new study finds that in learning a visual task, older people exhibited a surprising degree of plasticity, but had trouble filtering out irrelevant information.

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