Abstract
Presentation Description :
Photoreception in the mammalian retina extends to a population of retinal ganglion cells expressing the photopigment melanopsin. Melanopsin photoreceptors were discovered in attempts to understand how endogenous circadian clocks are reset to the light:dark cycle and are still often considered ‘non-visual’ photoreceptors to distinguish them from the rods and cones that form the origin of form vision. In fact, there is now abundant evidence that melanopsin photoreceptors do make an important contribution to the processes of perceptual vision. I will provide an overview of our work in mice showing that melanopsin can influence form vision by: 1.) driving light adaptation in early visual circuits; 2.) modulating maintained activity and inducing gamma oscillations in the retina and visual thalamus; and 3.) augmenting the early visual system’s ability to encode low spatiotemporal frequency patterns.
References:
Allen et al (2017) Melanopsin Contributions to the Representation of Images in the Early Visual System. Curr Biol. 27(11):1623-1632.
Storchi et al (2017) Modulation of fast narrowband oscillations in the mouse retina and dLGN according to background light intensity Neuron 93(2):299-307
Storchi et al (2015) Melanopsin-driven increases in maintained activity enhance thalamic visual response reliability across a simulated dawn. PNAS USA 112(42) E5734-43
Allen et al (2014) Melanopsin-driven light adaptation in mouse vision. Curr Biol 24(21):2481-90
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.