Retinal Photoreceptors Use Dual Pathways to Tell Brain ‘I’ve Seen the Light!’
Working with mammalian retinal cells, neuroscientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine have shown that, unlike most light-sensing cells (photoreceptors) in the retina, one special type uses two different pathways at the same time to transmit electrical “vision” signals to the brain. The work also reveals that such photoreceptors, according to the researchers, may have ancient origins on the evolutionary scale. This and other findings, published Dec 18, in PNAS, “shed scientific as well as literal light” on a
