Notable Paper: Virally Delivered Channelrhodopsin-2 Safely and Effectively Restores Visual Function in Multiple Mouse Models of Blindness

This truly groundbreaking paper by M Mehdi Doroudchi, Kenneth P Greenberg, Jianwen Liu, Kimberly A Silka, Edward S Boyden, Jennifer A Lockridge, A Cyrus Arman, Ramesh Janani, Shannon E Boye, Sanford L Boye, Gabriel M Gordon, Benjamin C Matteo, Alapakkam P Sampath, William W Hauswirth and Alan Horsager demonstrates that channelrhodopsin-2, a cation channel from …

Stargardt’s Disease angiogram

Venous phase fluorescein sodium angiogram of a dark choroid in Stargardt’s disease or fundus flavimaculatus.  Stargart’s Disease is a progressive retinal degenerative disease caused by mutations in one of 3 genes, ABCA4, ELOVL4 or PROM1.  The disease is a form of juvenile onset macular degeneration affecting the retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE).  The disease onset and progression is …

Notable Paper: UNC119 is Required for G Protein Trafficking in Sensory Neurons

Photoreceptors are specialized cells that elaborate a cilium which becomes the inner and outer segments of the photoreceptor that house photopigments (a beautiful TEM image of a photoreceptor cilium and its inner/outer segment can be seen here)….  Cilium are specialized structures that come in two flavors, motile and non-motile.  Motile cilium are found in places …

Cone Opsin Determines The Time Course of Cone Photoreceptor Degeneration in Leber Congenital Amaurosis

It is been long known that ventral and central cones degenerate more rapidly than dorsal cones in retinoid-deprived LCA (Leber’s Congenital Amaurosis) models.  This paper in PNAS by Tao Zhang, Wolfgang Baehr… …and Yingbin Fu shows that SW-opsins, but not ML-opsin, aggregates to form cytoplasmic inclusions in mutant mice and transfected cells.  This result explains …

100 Papers You Should Read: Synaptic Relationships in the Plexiform Layers of Carp Retina

This is the third paper in the category, 100 Papers You Should Read (in vision science). This paper, Synaptic Relationships in the Plexiform Layers of Carp Retina by Paul Witkovsky and John Dowling along with a previous one, Dowling and Boycott, 1966, began to set the stage for investigations into the circuitry of the inner plexiform …