Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is an essential fatty acid that is highly concentrated in photoreceptor cells (PRCs), where it helps to maintain their function. But the pathways that affect DHA availability in PRCs had not been described until a recent report from Nicolas Bazan (Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans) and colleagues identified adiponectinContinueContinue reading “Regulating DHA in the retina”
Tag Archives: sensory system
The importance of order in visual communication
Syntax, or the sequence of compositional elements, is known to be an important component of acoustic communication, but its relevance in visual communication has not been established. Kevin Woo (SUNY Empire State College, New York, NY) and Guillaume Rieucau (Institute of Marine Research, Bergen, Norway) assessed the role of syntax in visual communication in theContinueContinue reading “The importance of order in visual communication”
A spinal neural circuit keeps mice moving
Among many other jobs, the nervous system uses streams of information gathered from multiple senses to guide movement. The eyes detect obstacles. Balance gauges in the ears keep the head level. And sensors in the muscles and joints monitor limb position. Much of the resulting flood of information is preprocessed by sensory circuits before itContinueContinue reading “A spinal neural circuit keeps mice moving”
The insect equivalent of the amygdala
Animals’ survival depends on their ability to gather information about their environment, process and evaluate that information, and then modify their behavior in response. In the vertebrate brain, the amygdala has a key role in evaluating sensory information. Scientists led by Silke Sachse (Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena, Germany) recently reported that aContinueContinue reading “The insect equivalent of the amygdala”
Cancer detection by fruit fly olfaction
Cancer cells and non-cancer cells differ in metabolism and emit distinct volatile compounds, allowing them to be distinguished by their scent. Insect odorant receptors are excellent chemosensors with high sensitivity and a broad receptive range. Putting these two ideas together, collaborating scientists from University of Konstanz (Germany) and University of Rome (Italy) investigated the potentialContinueContinue reading “Cancer detection by fruit fly olfaction”
Mice further research on hearing loss
Research groups studying different types of hearing loss have gained new insight into its causes and possible treatments from experiments using mice. One group, led by Zheng-Yi Chen (Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Boston, MA), investigated age-related hearing loss (ARHL) and noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL), the two most common forms ofContinueContinue reading “Mice further research on hearing loss”
Seeing a way to remodel connections
During development, the eyes compete to connect with the brain’s binocular zone, and one eye sometimes prevails. This can lead to amblyopia, the most common cause of childhood visual impairment, in which the brain’s preference for the strong eye increases at the expense of the weaker eye. Patching the strong eye can help to correctContinueContinue reading “Seeing a way to remodel connections”
Traversing the retina without damage
Hereditary retinal degeneration, in which mutations in photoreceptors and other delicate cells of the eye’s outermost retinal layer lead to deterioration and visual impairment, affects roughly 1 in 3,000 people worldwide. Gene therapy can successfully deliver normal copies of the mutated genes to the affected cells using adeno-associated virus (AAV) but requires that the virusContinueContinue reading “Traversing the retina without damage”
How do fruit flies smell?
Fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) rely heavily on their sense of smell, and a large portion of their brain is dedicated to processing olfactory information. Recently, a group directed by Grace Boekhoff-Falk (University of Wisconsin, Madison) determined that the gene distal-less (dll) is essential for correct development of this olfactory system in fruit flies (Proc. Natl.ContinueContinue reading “How do fruit flies smell?”
Synchronicity belies simplicity in short-term memory
Most of us draw on our visual recognition and short-term memory abilities many times a day and with relatively little fanfare, but these seemingly mundane activities have rather complex underpinnings within our brains. The tasks involve different, non-adjacent brain regions: short-term memory formation occurs in the lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC), and visual information processing primarilyContinueContinue reading “Synchronicity belies simplicity in short-term memory”
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