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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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87 items

More than meets the eye: New research shows how the visual system contributes to memory

August 17, 2023

A team of researchers from NYU has demonstrated that the key to understanding working memory relies not only on what one is storing in memory, but also why.
Long distance connections in the brain.

Penn Medicine neuroscientists identify brain mechanism that drives focus despite distractions

August 9, 2023

“Visual-movement” neurons in the front of your brain can help you stay focused in the presence of visual distractions, according to a new study from neuroscientists in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Decorative

Study uncovers novel synaptic intricacies inside the retina

June 21, 2023

A Northwestern Medicine study has uncovered novel cellular mechanisms within the retina, findings that could help advance the development of targeted therapeutics for diseases and conditions affecting vision.
Brain pathways for visual processing

Scientists discover anatomical changes in the brains of the newly sighted

May 2, 2023

Following cataract removal, some of the brain’s visual pathways seem to be more malleable than previously thought.
Views of a patio from a walking, crawling, or flying perspective, and a collection of scrambled views.

Visually navigating on foot uses unique brain region

March 15, 2023

Using vision to efficiently move through an area by foot uses a unique region of the brain’s cortex, according to a small study funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI).
Synapses between neurons in thalamus and cortex.

Sparse, small, but diverse neural connections help make perception reliable, efficient

February 2, 2023

In a study from the Picower Institute at MIT, the first detailed mapping and modeling of thalamus inputs onto visual cortex neurons show brain leverages “wisdom of the crowd” to process sensory information.
Researchers examining brain

Brain cells use a telephone trick to report what they see

November 29, 2022

A new study from Duke University finds that single neurons conveying visual information about two separate objects in sight do so by alternating signals about one or the other.
Illuminated neuron projection from visual cortext

Neuroscience researchers awarded nearly $2 million by National Institutes of Health to study visual processing

November 28, 2022

Jordan Hamm, an assistant professor of neuroscience at Georgia State University, has received a five-year, $1.93 million award from the National Eye Institute.
Red, green and blue dots on screen representing RPE protein

NIH scientists discover essential step in recharging the eye’s light-sensing retina

October 26, 2022

Scientists have discovered a mechanism by which an area of a protein shape-shifts to convert vitamin A into a usable form for the eye’s light-sensing photoreceptor cells.
Top-down sectional views of 4 brain scans, showing missing hemispheres.

Word and face recognition can be adequately supported with half a brain, study finds

October 26, 2022

An unprecedented study of brain plasticity and visual perception found that people who, as children, had undergone surgery removing half of their brain correctly recognized differences between pairs of words or faces more than 80% of the time.