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。这项提议是为了继续进行一系列的实验来检验这一点，使用一种独特的装置，将少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压力的反应（一种发痒的感觉），化学（烧灼或刺痛）和冷刺激的眼睛表面，使我们能够探测这些特定类型的神经通道的功能。该建议是执行一系列的实验，以验证整个暴露和隐藏的敏感性。眼睛的（眼睑下）表面，以确定什么可以被检测到，以及什么可以被感觉到是不同的（检测和辨别阈值）。此外，我们还将研究眼表对更明显的刺激（阈上刺激）的反应，并将用于描述感觉的词语与刺激本身联系起来。这些表面对不同类型刺激的反应的感觉处理图将与眼表解剖学的新测量（特别是使用共聚焦显微镜和眼相干断层扫描获得的）进行比较。此外，我们将开始确定婴儿的加工过程如何发展，老年人的加工过程是否发生变化，以及男性和女性的加工过程是否不同。最后，我们将继续研究眼睛的其他结构发生了什么（例如，血管），以便了解眼睛表面对疼痛和无害刺激做出反应的回路。这项研究的长期目标是了解我们如何在眼睛表面感知事物，开发更好的测量这种感知的方法，以便最终，我们将能够为那些试图治疗眼睛不舒服和疼痛的人提供更有效的工具。

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.