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vision

This shows two people looking at one another.

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·April 25, 2025·5 min read

Eyes Reveal Intentions Faster Than We Think

Humans can detect another person’s intentions just by observing their eyes, even before any movement takes place. In experiments where participants watched video clips of people about to shift their gaze, viewers responded faster when the gaze was self-directed rather than instructed.

This shows a person surrounded by swirls.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology Visual Neuroscience

·April 22, 2025·4 min read

Psychedelics Linked to Visual Echoes

As psychedelics gain traction in mental health treatment, questions remain about their long-term effects. A new study followed individuals self-administering psychedelics and found that while some experienced lingering visual aftereffects, most were not distressed by them.

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·April 22, 2025·4 min read

Rewiring Retinal Messages to Slow Vision Loss in AMD

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of adult blindness, affects nearly half of Oklahomans over age 80. New research is uncovering how retinal cells communicate using microRNA and extracellular vesicles (EVs), with the goal of slowing AMD progression.

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·April 17, 2025·6 min read

Gold Nanoparticles Restore Vision in Macular Degeneration

A new study shows that gold nanoparticles injected into the retina can restore vision in mice with retinal degeneration, offering a less invasive alternative to current retinal prostheses. When activated by patterned infrared light, these nanoparticles stimulate retinal cells, bypassing damaged photoreceptors.

Featured Neurology Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·April 9, 2025·5 min read

Eye Clues May Reveal Early Dementia Risk

A new study has found that blood vessels in the retina may hold early clues about a person’s risk of developing dementia. Researchers observed that narrower arterioles, wider venules, and thinner retinal nerve fiber layers were linked to higher dementia risk around midlife.

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·February 21, 2025·4 min read

Every Breath You Take Alters Your Visual Perception

Researchers have discovered that breathing affects pupil size, with the pupil being smallest during inhalation and largest during exhalation. This newly identified mechanism is independent of external stimuli and could influence vision by alternating between detail enhancement and object detection.

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·January 27, 2025·5 min read

How the Brain Processes Space and Time

New research highlights a functional hierarchy in the brain's processing of space and time. In posterior areas, like the occipital cortex, space and time are tightly linked and processed by the same neurons. In anterior regions, such as the frontal cortex, space and time are processed independently, with distinct neural populations forming "time maps" for specific durations.

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·January 16, 2025·8 min read

Multifocal Lenses Reduce Myopia Risks

New research demonstrates that high-add multifocal contact lenses significantly slow myopia progression in children, with benefits that persist even after discontinuation. The lenses, designed to slow eye growth and reduce long-term myopia-related risks, showed no rebound effect after treatment stopped.

Featured Genetics Neuroscience

·December 18, 2024·4 min read

Genes Behind Dyslexia Linked to Brain Changes in Motor, Vision, and Language

A large-scale study revealed that genetic variants linked to dyslexia are associated with differences in brain areas controlling motor coordination, vision, and language. Using data from over a million individuals, researchers calculated genetic "polygenic scores" for dyslexia and analyzed their relationship to brain structures. Higher genetic risk for dyslexia was tied to lower volumes in brain regions related to speech processing and movement, and increased volumes in the visual cortex.

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·December 4, 2024·4 min read

Sleep Apnea May Increase Risk of Wet Macular Degeneration

A new study has linked moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), characterized by low oxygen levels overnight, with an increased risk of developing wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The research suggests nocturnal hypoxia could affect the oxygen-sensitive retina, contributing to AMD progression.

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·November 25, 2024·6 min read

How Expectations Shape Our Gaze in a Changing World

Our expectations about potential changes in a scene influence how we move our eyes, even when viewing static images. Participants looked more at areas with a high "potential for change" (PfC)—such as objects likely to move—when they expected the scene to become dynamic, despite no motion occurring during the observation period.

Featured Genetics Neuroscience

·November 18, 2024·5 min read

Dual-Gene Therapy Shows Promise for Hearing and Vision Loss

Researchers have developed a dual-gene therapy approach to treat Usher syndrome type 1F, a rare condition causing deafness and progressive blindness. By splitting the large PCDH15 gene into two halves, delivering them via adeno-associated viruses, and reassembling them in cells, the therapy restored hearing and balance in mice. Tests in human retinal organoids and primate retinas showed increased levels of protocadherin-15 in light-sensing cells, offering hope for vision preservation.