Vision

Far more people are willing to donate their eyes to research than actually are registered to donate, according to a paper in Current Eye Research. While demand for tissue remains high, the number of human eyes donated for research declined 28 percent between 1997 and 2004, said Andrew Williams, a third-year Michigan State University College of Human Medicine student. Of roughly 200 patients with eye diseases surveyed in the study, 90 percent said they were willing to donate their eyes. Among patients who were not registered to donate, 77 percent gave what the researchers called non-…

A new paper published in Psychonomic Bulletin and Review and based on a small experiment found that people who are blindfolded employ the same strategy to intercept a running ball carrier as people who can see, which suggests that multiple areas of the brain cooperate to accomplish the task.  Or they do what they learned when they could see. Either way, chasing down a moving object is not only a matter of sight or of sound, but of mind. Even while blindfolded, study participants seemed to aim ahead of the ball carrier's trajectory and then run to the spot where they expected him or her…

Dopamine, the neurotransmitter celebrity chemical du jour in brain stories, gets invoked a lot because it can make a lot of correlations possible - and that means fun for journalists who either want to highlight the ridiculous or scare you.  Like guns? Dopamine. Are you a Democrat? Dopamine. But aside from its 'pleasure chemical' designation, dopamine has lots of roles in the brain. So if a man takes antipsychotic medication, he may lactate as a side effect, because those medications focus on dopamine. And if there is an addiction story, dopamine is invoked. Writing in Obesity, Dr.…

Visually impaired individuals and people with uncorrected refractive error, those who could benefit from glasses to achieve normal vision but don't wear glasses, have a significantly greater risk of diminished balance with their eyes closed on a compliant, foam surface than individuals with normal vision. The research suggests that vision may play an important role in calibrating the vestibular system, which includes the bones and soft tissue of the inner ear, to help optimize physical balance. The work provides direction for more targeted studies on how poor vision impacts vestibular balance…

The drug aflibercept, under the trade name Eylea, has been approved in Germany since November 2012 for the treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD).  In an early benefit assessment pursuant to the Act on the Reform of the Market for Medicinal Products (AMNOG), the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) examined whether this new drug offers an added benefit over the current standard therapy. Such an added benefit cannot be derived from the dossier, since the manufacturer did not submit data for the comparison, says the advocacy group in…

A new paper suggests women can remember faces better than men, in part because they spend more time studying features - without even knowing it. In our modern science miracle culture, they have determined that you, also, can get a better memory. In just minutes a day. More importantly, studies may help to answer long-standing questions about why some people can remember faces easily while others quickly forget someone they've just met. "The way we move our eyes across a new individual's face affects our ability to recognize that individual later," explains Jennifer Heisz, a research fellow at…

Rats move their eyes in opposite directions in both the horizontal and the vertical plane when running around. Each eye moves in a different direction, depending on the change in the animal’s head position,  according to a behavioral tracking study that used miniaturized high-speed cameras. Like many mammals, rats have their eyes on the sides of their heads. This gives them a very wide visual field, useful for detection of predators. However, three-dimensional vision requires overlap of the visual fields of the two eyes. Thus, the visual system of these animals needs to meet two…

How do we often find something tiny in a large area?  When our brains begin a targeted search, various visual and non-visual regions of the brain mobilize to track down that person, animal or thing. That means that if we're looking for a youngster lost in a crowd, the brain areas usually dedicated to recognizing other objects, or even the areas attuned to abstract thought, shift their focus and join the search party. The brain rapidly becomes highly focused child-finder, and redirects resources it uses for other mental tasks. The findings may help explain why we find it difficult to…

Are the eyes more accurate than the nose and tongue in determining the taste of food?  Some people can actually see the flavor of foods, and the eyes have such a powerful role that they can even trump the tongue and the nose. The popular Sauvignon Blanc white wine, for instance, gets its flavor from scores of natural chemicals, including chemicals with the flavor of banana, passion fruit, bell pepper and boxwood. But when served a glass of Sauvignon Blanc tinted to the deep red of Merlot or Cabernet, people taste the natural chemicals that give rise to the flavors of those wines. The…

How does the human brain 'decodes' letters on a page to read a word? Psychologists are trying to help neuroscientists unravel the subtle thinking mechanisms involved in reading, which could provide solutions for helping people who find it difficult to read, like dyslexics. In order to read successfully, readers need not only to identify the letters in words, but also to accurately code the positions of those letters, so that they can distinguish words like CAT and ACT. At the same time, however, it's clear that raeders can dael wtih wodrs in wihch not all teh leettrs aer in thier corerct…