The formation of receptive fields in the retina

Visual acuity is defined as the eye's ability to resolve fine details. To achieve this, the eye's optical system has to project a focused image on the retina, in particular on the fovea, a region having the highest density of cone photoreceptors (the only kind of photoreceptors existing on the fovea), thus having the highest resolution and best colour vision. The cones have to respond to the light stimulus and interact with neighbouring neurons to enhance the contrast and sharpen the colour of the image. These neural interactions form receptive fields. How the retina produces receptive fields that underlie the encoding of visual information and that creates the highest possible resolution of images is the topic of this application. This is not only a fascinating question about how the visual system has found algorithms that maximize its detection capabilities, but bears heavily on the most common forms of low vision and blindness. The research objective is to reveal the determinants of spatial and temporal acuity in the retina. The principal research methodologies carried out by the Principle Investigator and several students and other trainees involve electrophysiological recording in the vertebrate retina.