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  1. Retinal Half Mosaic

    This beautiful image is another by Gabriel Luna out of Steve Fisher and Geoff Lewis’s retinal cell biology group at UC Santa Barbara Neuroscience Research Institute that shows a small mosaic of the outer plexiform layer in mouse retina stained with anti-Calbindin D (green; horizontal cells) PNA (red; cone terminals) and GFP for bipolar cells (blue).  I love the regular order [...]

    Feb 19, 2012 — Read more No Comments

  2. Gene Therapy Rescues Photoreceptor Blindness in Dogs and Paves The Way for Treating Human X-linked Retinitis Pigmentosa

    This paper in PNAS by William A. Beltran, Artur V. Cideciyan, Alfred S. Lewin, Simone Iwabe, Hemant Khanna, Alexander Sumaroka, Vince A. Chiodo, Diego S. Fajardo, Alejandro J. Román, Wen-Tao Deng, Malgorzata Swider, Tomas S. Alemán, Sanford L. Boye, Sem Genini, Anand Swaroop, William W. Hauswirth, Samuel G. Jacobson and Gustavo D. Aguirre is a continuation [...]

    Feb 8, 2012 — Read more No Comments

  3. Generation of An Inbred Miniature Pig Model of Retinitis Pigmentosa

    A recent paper by Jason W. Ross, Juan P. Fernandez de Castro, Jianguo Zhao, Melissa Samuel, Eric Walters, Cecilia Rios, Patricia Bray-Ward, Bryan W. Jones, Robert E. Marc, Wei Wang, Liang Zhou, Jennifer M. Noel, Maureen A. McCall, Paul J. DeMarco, Randall S. Prather and Henry J. Kaplan describes the creation of a new model of retinal degenerative disease, specifically autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa in a miniature pig model, [...]

    Feb 7, 2012 — Read more No Comments

  4. Metabolomic Eye Wins Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge

    The image that is used for the avatar here on Webvision has been awarded first place in the journal Science and the National Science Foundation‘s Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge for 2011 (video with interviews here).

    Feb 5, 2012 — Read more No Comments

  5. Iris Tumor Goniometer

    Iris tumors are fairly common and have been featured here on Webvision before.  Most “tumors” are actually cysts or benign nevi, but malignant melanomas also can occur.  

    Feb 1, 2012 — Read more No Comments

  6. 100 Papers You Should Read: Molecular Genetics of Human Color Vision: The Genes Encoding Blue, Green, and Red Pigments

    This is the fifth paper in the category, 100 Papers You Should Read (in vision science). This paper in the journal Science by Jeremy Nathans, Darcy Thomas and David Hogness in the genetics of human vision is a landmark paper in our understanding of how color vision works.

    Jan 31, 2012 — Read more No Comments

  7. Jumping Spiders Use Image Defocusing For Depth Perception

    A study out in today’s Science Magazine by Takashi Nagata, Mitsumasa Koyanagi, Hisao Tsukamoto, Shinjiro Saeki, Kunio Isono, Yoshinori Shichida, Fumio Tokunaga, Michiyo Kinoshita, Kentaro Arikawa and Akihisa Terakita proposes that jumping spiders at least, use image defocusing to provide depth perception.  Jumping spiders (Salticidae) are the largest family of spiders and have perhaps the best visual [...]

    Jan 26, 2012 — Read more 1 Comment

  8. Astrocyte pVHL and HIF-α Isoforms Are Required for Embryonic-To-Adult Vascular Transition In The Eye

    This paper from Toshihide Kurihara, Peter Westenskow, Tim Krohne, Edith Aguilar, Randy A. Johnson, and Marty Friedlander propose a model for the transition from embryonic to adult circulation in the eye  using a combinatorial gene deletion approach with over expression assays, examining astrocyte-targeted deletion of von Hippel-Lindau tumor suppressor (Vhl), hypoxia-inducible factor-αs (Hif-αs), and VEGF [...]

    Jan 13, 2012 — Read more No Comments

  9. Functional Activation of Glutamate Ionotropic Receptors in the Human Peripheral Retina

    This paper by Clairton F. de Souza, Michael Kalloniatis, Philip J. Polkinghorne, Charles N.J. McGhee, Monica L. Acosta examines glutamate receptors and their functional activation in the human retina.

    Jan 9, 2012 — Read more No Comments

  10. Webvision Year In Review

    2011 was a big year for Webvision.  We moved servers to a new MacPro, served up one million pages, underwent a major redesign in April by moving the database onto WordPress platform, and started the blog portion of Webvision in addition to the traditional chapter content that has made us so popular.

    Jan 6, 2012 — Read more No Comments

  11. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, 2011

    Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you from all of us at Webvision.  This image, a Christmas wreath created by Robert E. Marc is composed of 104 rod bipolar cell axonal fields from the world’s first complete connectome with synaptic level resolution.  Each bipolar cell in this field has been annotated from ultrastructural data [...]

    Dec 24, 2011 — Read more No Comments

  12. Activated Müller Glia

    Friend of Webvision, Peter Westenskow in the Friedlander Laboratory sent us this beautiful image of activated Müller glia in a stressed mouse eye.  You can see the scar in the photoreceptor layer towards the top of the image.  The mouse line is VLDLR -/-.  These mice exhibit aberrant neovascular tufts that invade the ONL and eventually [...]

    Dec 23, 2011 — Read more No Comments

  13. RD 2012: XVth International Symposium on Retinal Degeneration Announcement

    We just received program notice of the XVth International Symposium on Retinal Degeneration that will be held, July 16-20, 2012 Bad Gögging, Bavaria, Germany.

    Dec 12, 2011 — Read more No Comments

  14. Notable Paper: Acute vision in the giant Cambrian predator Anomalocaris and the origin of compound eyes

    Because knowing where we have come from with respect to the evolution of vision is so important, this paper by John R. Paterson, Diego C. García-Bellido, Michael S. Y. Lee, Glenn A. Brock, James B. Jago and Gregory D. Edgecombe gets our nod for a notable paper.  It does not hurt that I have a [...]

    Dec 7, 2011 — Read more No Comments

  15. Optic Nerve Head

    Another amazing image sent to us by Gabriel Luna out of the Steve Fisher and Geoff Lewis’s retinal cell biology group at UC Santa Barbara Neuroscience Research Institute.  This image is of the optic nerve head of a normal mouse retina displaying the “glial tubes” formed by the astrocytic network (anti-GFAP; red).  Anti-GFP (green) and anti-Collagen IV (blue) which [...]

    Dec 1, 2011 — Read more No Comments

  16. Bärbel Rohrer, Ph.D. Stanley H. and Theodora L. Feldberg Chair in Ophthalmology

    We here at Webvision are deliriously happy to report that our good friend and colleague, Bärbel Rohrer was just appointed the Stanley H. and Theodora L. Feldberg Chair in Ophthalmology at Medical University of South Carolina.  Many congratulations to her and we’ll look forward to congratulating her in person when she comes to visit us [...]

    Nov 23, 2011 — Read more No Comments

  17. Retinal Pigment Epithelium Cultures

    Friend of Webvision, Peter Westenskow in Marty Friedlander’s laboratory sent along this gorgeous image of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells differentiating from induced pluripotent stem cells.  

    Nov 19, 2011 — Read more No Comments

  18. Metabolic Profiling of Activated Retinal Glia

    Presented at the Society for Neuroscience meetings in Washington, D.C. by Felix Vazquez-Chona, William Drew Ferrell, Ed Levine, Bryan William Jones and Robert E. Marc.  Full size poster can be seen here.

    Nov 18, 2011 — Read more No Comments

  19. Keratoprosthesis

    This image is from a patient has a keratoprosthesis or artificial cornea.  Photograph was made by James Gilman of the Moran Eye Center using a sclerotic scatter illumination with a Zeiss photo slitlamp and a Nikon D-1X camera.  

    Nov 17, 2011 — Read more No Comments

  20. Notable Paper: Acute destruction of the synaptic ribbon reveals a role for the ribbon in vesicle priming

    This article by Josefin Snellman, Bhupesh Mehta, Norbert Babai, Theodore M Bartoletti, Wendy Akmentin, Adam Francis, Gary Matthews, Wallace Thoreson and David Zenisek examines the vesicular priming process at synaptic ribbons.

    Nov 8, 2011 — Read more No Comments

  21. Notable Paper: Long-term RNA interference gene therapy in a dominant retinitis pigmentosa mouse model

    Hereditary retinal dystrophies (retinitis pigmentosa, Leber congenital amaurosis, cone-rod dystrophies, macular degeneration) are characterized by loss of visual function, sometimes starting during early childhood, other times in late adulthood.  About 30% of these dystrophies are inherited in an autosomal dominant fashion (RetNet), caused by gain-of-function mutant alleles which encode a malignant form of a normal [...]

    Nov 2, 2011 — Read more No Comments

  22. Moran Eye Center Focus, 2011

    The annual Moran Eye Center Focus for 2011 is available here (9.6MB pdf).  

    Oct 28, 2011 — Read more No Comments

  23. 14th Vision Research Conference Retina Ciliopathies: From Genes to Mechanisms and Treatment

    Date: 4-5 May 2012 Location: Convention Center, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA The 14th Vision Research Conference is a two-day satellite meeting prior to ARVO 2012.

    Oct 21, 2011 — Read more 1 Comment

  24. Retinal Fundus Images, Ground Truth of Vascular Bifurcations and Crossovers

    The vasculature of the eye can provide amazing insight into systemic cardiovascular health.  For those studying the vasculature of the eye as an indicator of pathophysiological states, normative ground truth datasets become critically important.  Recently, George Azzopardi and Nicolai Petkov have made their annotated database of ground truth imagery of vascular bifurcations and crossovers in [...]

    Oct 20, 2011 — Read more No Comments

  25. Notable Paper: Localization of Melatonin Receptor 1 in Mouse Retina and Its Role in the Circadian Regulation of the Electroretinogram and Dopamine Levels

    I’ve watched the development of the circadian rhythm research starting with Joe Takahashi‘s work discovering CLOCK in the mammalian SCN back in 1994.  Since then there has been an explosion of circadian rhythm biology work including an I suppose, unsurprising amount of research in the retina proper. This paper by Anamika Sengupta, Kenkichi Baba, Francesca Mazzoni, Nikita V. Pozdeyev, Enrica [...]

    Oct 18, 2011 — Read more 1 Comment