How does our brain organize thousands of images that flood our retinas each day? That’s the question that scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, sought to answer by creating the first interactive map of how the brain organizes these groupings. 

 

The result is what researchers are calling “a continuous semantic space.” Up to now, the scientific community thought that each category of object or action humans see (people, animals, vehicles, movements) is represented in a separate region of the visual cortex. The study by the Berkeley team, however, shows that these categories are actually represented in highly organized, overlapping maps that cover almost 20% of the brain, including the somatosensory and frontal cortices.

 

A clearer understanding of how the brain organizes visual input could help with the diagnosis and treatment of brain disorders. It could also help create brain-machine interfaces.

“Our discovery suggests that brain scans could soon be used to label an image that someone is seeing, and may also help teach computers how to better recognize images,” said doctoral student Alexander Huth.

 

Source: http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2012/12/19/semanticspace

A researcher in ophthalmology and neuroscience at the LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans Neuroscience Center of Excellence has discovered a protein that protects retinal photoreceptor cells from degeneration caused by light damage.

 

The protein, called FATP4 (for fatty acid transport protein) could become the target of new treatments for retinal degenerative disease or age-related macular degeneration, according to the article published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

 

The researchers were trying to understand what could impede the proper functioning of the RPE65 enzyme, the mutations of which have been linked to various kinds of vision loss, retinal degeneration, and blinding eye diseases. They found that the FATP4 protein was inhibiting RPE65.

 

Recently, mutations in the human FATP4 gene have been identified in patients with a certain recessive disorder which also features one of the toxic by-products associated with abnormal visual cycles. This by-product, called A2E, accumulates in retinal pigment epithelial cells with age. This means additional studies are needed to determine whether the FATP4 mutations cause age-related disorders and retinal degeneration.

 

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130212172207.htm