Robert B. Barlow, PhD
Professor Robert B. Barlow
Location: Department of Ophthalmology SUNY Upstate Medical University 750 East Adams Street Syracuse, NY 13210 E-mail: barlowr@upstate.edu NewsJapanese Quail Retina ResearchDr. Barlow's Research Featured in National GeographicDr. Robert Barlow's vision research is featured in the February 1999 issue (Vol. 195, No. 2) of National Geographic. At the University Center for Vision Research, Dr. Barlow is working to decode the visual system of the horseshoe crab. The horseshoe crab has changed little since an ancestor was fossilized 150 million years ago. Read about it below... Current researchDeciphering a Neural Code for VisionWhat information does the eye send to the brain when an animal sees? We have answered this question for one model visual system, that of the horseshoe crab, Limulus polyphemus. Based on the extensive knowledge of the Limulus eye, we constructed a comprehensive cel-based model of the eye to predict the arrays of optic nerve activity, or "neural images," the eye transmits to the brain when the animal sees. The input to the model are video images of the animal's underwater world taken with a shell-mounted CrabCam. Confirmed by single optic-nerve recordings, the neural images show that the eye functions as a filter tuned to objects having the size, contrast, and motion of potential mates. The neural coding mechanisms of this relatively simple eye help explain how horseshoe crabs see and hopefully will help us better understand vision in other species, including humans. |