OM Brain, Eyes and Vision according to modern science OM

[Guest guest]

OM

They need to read the Sri Vedas and Sri Patanjali's Sutras:

 

Brain Processes Sketchy Images of What Eye Sees

http://dailynews./h/nm/20010328/sc/eye_dc_1.html

 

LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists may have come a step

closer Wednesday to the creation of a bionic eye with

new research showing how the eye provides sketchy

images that the brain interprets to create what we

see.

 

A bionic eye using a computer microchip to restore

sight is still a very long way off, but researchers at

the University of California Berkeley have uncovered

new secrets about how we see.

 

``Even though we think we see the world so fully, what

we are receiving is really just hints, edges in space

and time,'' said Frank Werblin, a professor of

molecular and cell biology.

 

Werblin and his colleague Botond Roska discovered that

the eye has about 10 to 12 output channels each

carrying information to the brain which then

constructs images.

 

Writing in the science journal Nature, they showed

that the retina of the eye creates a stack of image

representations, how they are formed and that they are

the result of communication between layers of cells in

the retina.

 

Roska's father, Tamas Roska, and Leon Chua who also

work at the university invented the computer microchip

called Cellular Neural Network (CNN) that can be

programmed to do visual processing just like the

retina which would form the basis of a bionic eye.

 

``The biology we are learning is going into improving

the chip, which is getting more and more similar to

the mammalian retina,'' Roska said in a statement.

 

But before a bionic eye can become a reality

scientists must discover how to connect the chip to

the complicated circuitry in the brain.

 

The researchers discovered the output channels by

meticulously measuring signals from ganglion cells,

the eye's output cells to the brain, in rabbits while

flashing images of squares or circles in front of the

animals.

 

They found that groups of ganglion cells represented

different visual features and sent the information to

different paths in the brain.

 

Hungarian software designer David Balya then used

their findings on a computer model which mimics the

ganglion cells in the retina.

 

``We are now looking at the predictions the model

makes when viewing natural scenes...and comparing them

with what we measure in actual retinal cells, to learn

how good the predictions are,'' said Roska.

 

 

OM

 

------------

Get FREE E-Mail

http://www.valuemail.net