By imaging the brains of mice, researchers in Austria have identified how blurred vision caused by movement can be corrected – a function that should also apply in humans.
The study, at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria, in Klosterneuberg, used a fluorescence microscope to measure the brain activity of mice, that were running freely on a treadmill with a clamp keeping their head in a fixed position, while being shown moving images that imitated their normal surroundings.
The researchers saw that a specific brain region – the ventral lateral geniculate nucleus – is involved in minimising how movements of the eye distort vision, by acting as a hub that ‘computes’ a corrective signal.
This process happens at an early stage of processing, within milliseconds, before the signals from the eye are transmitted to other brain regions that are involved in more complex visual processing – therefore effectively compensating for blurriness.
Lead author Maximilian Jösch (pictured on the right, with Tomas Vega-Zuniga and Olga Symonova), said: “Similar structures exist in primates, and this is very likely the case for humans, too. This makes our results very exciting.”