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，颜色的次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了大量的了解，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出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，我们对色彩视觉的神经生理学的理解很大程度上局限于视网膜。色彩视觉的中心机制在很大程度上是未知的，许多方面的色彩感知不能解释视网膜机制。这项提议的研究是为了测量视网膜外调节色觉的信号的质量和行为相关性。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，以识别最有可能构成色觉的神经元。2)初级视觉皮层的单个神经元记录，研究影响颜色外观的操作如何影响神经元反应。提出的实验扩展了我们对颜色视觉的知识，以理解引起感知及其障碍的神经科学原理。这种认识有望提供促进创伤或神经系统疾病后视觉功能恢复的手段。

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.