The functional basis of direction selectivity in the retina

Funding Activity

Website
http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/179837

Funding Status
Closed

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Funded Activity Summary

Motion is an everday visual experience, and in this project we are attempting to explain how our brains are able to detect the direction in which an object is moving. Surprisingly this is first accomplished within the retina, the light-sensitive system of neurons at the back of the eye. Thus the eyes are able to tell the brain in which direction an object is moving. So the question becomes, how do the eyes do it? We know that there is a special class of neurons, the direction-selective ganglion cells, which are able to detect the direction of image motion. The activity of these cells is increased by excitatory connections and reduced by so-called inhibitory connections. This project aims to identify the neural origin of the inhibitory connections, and discover how the excitation and inhibition work together to compute the direction of motion.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2002

End Date: 01-01-2004

Funding Scheme: NHMRC Project Grants

Funding Amount: $376,320.00

Funder: National Health and Medical Research Council

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

Opthalmology And Vision Science

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

Central nervous system | Neural systems | Neurology | Ophthalmology | Patch clamping | Retinal degeneration | Retinal neurophysiology | Synaptic physiology

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