neuron communication
jhalper | August 9, 2011What does a tiny patch of salamander retina see when it watches a movie? Weizmann Institute scientists, together with Dr. Ronen Segev at Ben-Gurion University, performed this experiment - literally showing film sequences to snippets of live retina tissue and recording the interactions between their 100 or so active neurons.
Seeing, as we know, is 3/4 interpretation and, contrary to common belief, this interpretation begins in the eye, before an image ever reaches the brain. Dr. Elad Schneidman and his colleagues found that unique patterns of neuron activity could be identified: There were…