If you’re a gardener, you might find yourself inspired by these fluorescent “petals” resembling a particularly bright flower.

Scientists can visualize select cells within the mouse retina using confocal microscopy, here showcasing blood vessels in the retina that resemble a flower. The “petals” reveal in great detail the complex structure of retinal vasculature (purple). The cell bodies (in blue) of retinal ganglion cells are a unique class of neuron within the retina that is the sole output neuron from the eye, transferring visual information processed in the retina to centers in the brain that are critical for perception.

Analyses of subsets of these retinal ganglion cells allow scientists to better understand how the visual system processes distinct stimuli, for example the ability to perceive motion as objects move across the visual field.

This National Institutes of Health-funded research helps scientists learn how the retina processes and stabilizes moving images motion, preventing vision from becoming blurry. Alex Kolodkin, Ph.D., the Charles J. Homcy and Simeon G. Margolis Professor of Neuroscience and deputy director of the Institute for Basic Biomedical Science, and his team of researchers examine mutations in mice that compromise the ability of retina neurons to perform this image stabilization.

These same mutations are also found in humans, and by studying these retinal ganglion cells scientists can better understand how they affect people with eye movement disorders.

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