Central mechanisms of color vision

描述(申请人提供)：视觉系统已经成为理解神经元信息处理的主要模型。在视觉方面，颜色的亚通道提供了一个特别吸引人的实验平台：我们对颜色知觉的现象学有大量的了解，并可以通过众所周知的生理过程来定量和高精度地解释颜色知觉的某些方面。作为这一进步的结果，我们可以快速而准确地诊断许多不同形式的色盲，并可以制造出准确呈现颜色的设备。另一方面，我们对色觉的神经生理学的了解在很大程度上局限于视网膜。色觉的中枢机制在很大程度上是未知的，颜色知觉的许多方面不能用视网膜机制来解释。这项拟议的研究旨在衡量视网膜以外调节色觉的信号的质量和行为相关性。计划有两个具体的目标：1)在初级视觉皮质中记录单个神经元，以识别最有可能构成颜色视觉的神经元。2)在初级视皮层中记录单个神经元，以研究影响颜色外观的操作如何影响神经元反应。拟议中的实验将我们对颜色视觉的知识扩展到对神经科学原理的理解，而神经科学原理引起了知觉及其障碍。这样的理解有望为促进创伤或神经疾病后视觉功能的恢复提供手段。 与公共卫生相关：了解神经元如何调节感知是开发有效治疗扰乱感知的病理的重要一步。拟议的实验利用颜色视觉的模型系统，这是视觉中最成熟的亚模式之一，以揭示将外围受体的激活与感知联系起来的神经事件。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The visual system has emerged as a premier model for understanding information processing by neurons. Within vision, the submodality of color provides a particularly attractive experimental platform: we know a tremendous amount about the phenomenology of color perception and can explain some aspects of color perception, quantitatively and with high precision, by well- understood physiological processes. As a result of this progress, we can quickly and accurately diagnose many distinct forms of color blindness and can build devices that render colors accurately. On the other hand, our understanding of the neurophysiology of color vision is largely restricted to the retina. The central mechanisms of color vision are largely unknown, and many aspects of color perception cannot be explained by retinal mechanisms. The proposed research is to measure the quality and behavioral relevance of the signals beyond the retina that mediate color vision. Two specific aims are planned: 1) Single neuron recording in the primary visual cortex to identify the neurons most likely to underlie color vision. 2) Single neuron recording in the primary visual cortex to study how manipulations that affect color appearance affect neuronal responses. The proposed experiments extend our knowledge of color vision toward an understanding of the principles of neuroscience that give rise to perception and its disorders. Such an understanding promises to provide the means to promote recovery of visual function following trauma or neurological disease. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Understanding how neurons mediate perception is an important step towards developing effective treatments for pathologies that disrupt perception. The proposed experiments exploit the model system of color vision, one of the most mature submodalities of vision, to reveal the neural events that relate activation of the peripheral receptors to perception.