When light conditions rapidly change, our eyes have to respond to this change in fractions of a second to maintain stable visual processing. This is necessary when, for example, we drive through a forest and move through alternating stretches of shadows and clear sunlight.
When light conditions rapidly change, our eyes have to respond to this change in fractions of a second to maintain stable visual processing. This is necessary when, for example, we drive through a forest and move through alternating stretches of shadows and clear sunlight.
“In situations like these, it is not enough for the photoreceptors to adapt, but an additional corrective mechanism is required”, said Professor Marion Silies of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU). Earlier work undertaken by her research group had already demonstrated that such a corrective “gain control” mechanism exists in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, where it acts directly downstream of the photoreceptors.
Silies’s team has now managed to identify the algorithms, mechanisms, and neuronal networks that enable the fly to sustain stable visual processing when light levels change rapidly. The corresponding article appears in Nature Communications.
Our vision must function accurately in many different situations—when we move in our surroundings as well as when our eyes follow an object that moves from light into shade.
