Human Ocular Surface Sensory Processing

人眼表面感觉处理：人眼表面是身体上最敏感的地方之一，但对人类的这种敏感性知之甚少。这个提议是为了继续进行一系列的实验来检验这一点，用一种独特的装置将微量的空气和二氧化碳的混合物吹到眼睛上。这个装置使我们能够测量人类对眼睛表面的压力（瘙痒感）、化学物质（灼烧或刺痛）和冷刺激的反应，从而使我们能够探测这些特定类型的神经通道的功能。

Human Ocular Surface Sensory Processing: The surface of the human eye is one of the most sensitive places on the body and yet little is understood about this sensitivity in humans. This proposal is for the continuation of a series of experiments to examine this, with a unique device that blows tiny amounts of a mixture of air and carbon dioxide onto the eye. This device enables us to measure the response in humans to pressure (a scratchy feeling), chemical (burning or stinging) and cold stimulation of the surface of the eye allowing us to to probe the function of those specific types of neural channels. The proposal is to perform a series of experiments to characterise the sensitivity of the whole exposed and hidden (under the lids) surface of the eye to determine what can just be detected, as well as what can be felt to be different (detection and discrimination thresholds). In addition, the response of the ocular surface with stimuli that are more noticeable (suprathreshold) will also be examined and I will tie the words used to describe sensations to the stimulation itself. These sensory processing maps of how the surface responds to different kinds of stimuli will be compared to new measures of the anatomy of the eye's surface (obtained particularly using a confocal microscopy and ocular coherence tomography). In addition we will begin to determine how processing develops in infants, it it changes in the aged and whether it differs in males and females. Finally, we will continue to examine what happens to the other structures of the eye (e.g., the blood vessels) when a painful stimulus is applied, in order to develop an understanding of the circuits on the eye's surface that respond to painful and innocuous stimuli. The long term goal of this research is to understand how we sense things at the surface of our eyes, develop better measurements of this sensing so that, eventually, we will be able to provide more effective tools for those trying to treat people suffering with uncomfortable and painful eyes.