To address these questions, we study the non-human primate retina, an outpost of the brain located in the back of the eye. The eye and the neural circuits within are generally thought of as a fancy camera for the cortex where the computations that define visual perception and behavior begin. This view of the retina is the foundation of our current understanding of how vision works and is based largely on the three most common ganglion cell types. Why then does the primate retina need 14 bipolar cell types, 40-60 amacrine cell types and over 20 ganglion cells? At least 40 primate retinal neurons have no place in our current understanding of how our visual system works, which indicates we may understand just a fraction of the visual processing that occurs in the back of the eye.
Our focus is on the ganglion cells because they provide the sole source of visual information to the brain and thus make up the building blocks for all downstream vision. A key emphasis is on understanding the many mysterious, understudied rarer ganglion cell types, not only because each may be individually important for human health and disease, but also because together they may lead to more comprehensive model of how vision works that can accommodate the full complexity and sophistication of retinal processing.
Addressing these gaps in knowledge is increasingly urgent. Our basic science understanding of what the retina tells the brain is a key limitation to further development of devices like retinal prosthetics that aim to restore vision in the blind by replacing the retinal output, such as retinal prosthetics. As such, our goal is not only to characterize the information present in the output of each ganglion cell type, but to understand each type in the context of the visual functions they evolved to mediate. We also aim to better understand how the retina (and neural circuits in general) break by tracking how neural circuits function and remodel during degeneration.
Check out our current research to learn more about the lab's work on retinal circuitry, degeneration, and high-resolution, non-invasive functional imaging techniques. We are also hiring!
The Patterson lab is part of the Flaum Eye Institute and the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester Medical Center. We are also fortunate to be part of the Advanced Retinal Imaging Alliance (ARIA) within the Center for Visual Science, a group of labs focused on high-resolution retinal imaging.