Central mechanisms of color vision

描述（由申请人提供）：视觉系统已经成为理解神经元信息处理的首要模型。在视觉中，颜色的亚模态提供了一个特别有吸引力的实验平台：我们对颜色感知的现象学有着大量的了解，并且可以通过充分理解的生理过程定量地、高精度地解释颜色感知的某些方面。由于这一进展，我们可以快速准确地诊断许多不同形式的色盲，并可以构建准确呈现颜色的设备。另一方面，我们对色觉神经生理学的理解主要局限于视网膜。色觉的中枢机制在很大程度上是未知的，并且色觉的许多方面不能用视网膜机制来解释。拟议的研究是测量视网膜以外的信号的质量和行为相关性，这些信号介导色觉。计划有两个具体目标：1）在初级视觉皮层中记录单个神经元，以识别最有可能成为色觉基础的神经元。2)初级视觉皮层中的单神经元记录，以研究影响颜色外观的操作如何影响神经元反应。拟议的实验扩展了我们对色觉的知识，使我们能够理解引起感知及其障碍的神经科学原理。这种理解有望提供促进创伤或神经系统疾病后视觉功能恢复的方法。 公共卫生相关性：了解神经元如何介导感知是开发有效治疗破坏感知的病理的重要一步。建议的实验利用模型系统的颜色视觉，视觉的最成熟的子模态之一，揭示的神经事件，相关的外周受体的激活感知。

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.