Section of 512-electrode array. |
| |
Salamander retina on 512-electrode array. |
|
|
Together with neurobiologists, ATLAS physicists have studied the information that is transmitted from the eye to the brain. The retina is a sophisticated biological pixel detector that converts a visual image into electrical signals, called "spikes". These spikes act as a neural code and communicate the features of an image to the visual centre of the brain. To crack this code, live retinal tissue is examined and a recording system for large-scale neural activity has been developed based on the silicon microstrip detector technology used in the ATLAS experiment. These experiments help neurobiologists to understand how living neural systems process and encode information and could one day give artificial sight for the blind.
Retina Project Credits:
Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics (SCIPP)
University Of California Santa Cruz |
