Notable Paper: Molecular Analysis Of The Amphioxus Frontal Eye…
I have a fascination with the evolution of the eye and are always looking for interesting papers that help describe from where, how and when vision came. This paper, Molecular analysis of the amphioxus frontal eye unravels the evolutionary origin of the retina and pigment cells of the vertebrate eye by Pavel Vopalenskya, Jiri Pergnera, Michaela …
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Akira Fujii
Golgi Stack
Notable Paper: The Molecular Mechanism of Thermal Noise in Rod Photoreceptors
Phototransduction is the process by which photon capture by opsins in photoreceptors is transduced into a neural signal. However, there are limits on visual sensitivity that are imposed by thermal means as opposed to the photochemical mechanisms resulting in activation of the phototransduction cascade. The mechanism of this limit has long been a matter …
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Bonneville Speed Week, 2012
Notable Paper: Partial Rescue of Retinal Function in Chronically Hypoglycemic Mice
This paper by Yumiko Umino, Nicolas Cuenca, Drew Everhart, Laura Fernandez-Sanchez, Robert B. Barlow and Eduardo Solessio examined late onset retinal degeneration in a model of diabetic retinopathy. Specifically, this manuscript attempted to examine the impact on retinas from the Gcgr knockout mice with long term high dietary glucose to see if that rescues retinal structure …
Quiet Darkness
ISER 2012
Was Van Gogh Colorblind?
A friend of mine (and amazing landscape/nature photographer) Jim Goldstein sent me a Tweet and pointed out simmering new conjecture in the art community that Vincent Van Gogh might have been color blind, specifically a protanope. I seem to remember some discussion of this years ago, particularly given that one can rather nicely simulate both protanopia …
Berlin, Germany
Notable Paper: Receptor interacting protein kinase mediates necrotic cone but not rod cell death in a mouse model of inherited degeneration
How photoreceptor cells go through the process of cell death has been an outstanding question. The authors of this paper by Yusuke Murakami, Hidetaka Matsumoto, Miin Roh, Jun Suzuki, Toshio Hisatomi, Yasuhiro Ikeda, Joan W. Miller, and Demetrios G. Vavvas have further defined the process and identified the receptor interacting protein kinase (RIP) pathway as a …
Sometimes, Life Throws You A Curveball…
Sunrise
Macular pigment imaging in AREDS2 participants: An ancillary study of AREDS2 subjects enrolled at the Moran Eye Center
This study by Paul S. Bernstein, Faisal Ahmed, Aihua Liu, Susan Allman, Xiaoming Sheng, Mohsen Sharifzadeh, Igor Ermakov, and Werner Gellermann in IOVS examined the macular pigment in AREDS2patients. AREDS2 is a randomized, placebo-controlled study designed to determine whether supplementation with 10 mg of lutein and 2 mg of zeaxanthin per day can slow the rate of progression …