A/Prof Teresa Puthussery

Optometry researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, have uncovered highly specialised cells known as direction-selective ganglion cells, which are vital for maintaining sharp and steady images.

The research, published in Nature, was led by Assistant Professor Teresa Puthussery at the Herbert Wertheim School of Optometry & Vision Science, with first author Dr Anna Yao Mei Wang, a postdoctoral scholar in The Puthussery Lab.

The new findings demonstrate for the first time that retinal neurons underlying gaze stabilisation in other mammals are also present in primates, including humans, said the research team in an in-house article on the discovery. These findings will enable researchers to better understand how retinal mechanisms contribute to gaze stabilisation in the normal visual system and in disorders that cause unstable gaze, such as nystagmus, they said. The results also provide a vivid demonstration that a rare retinal ganglion cell type may have a profound impact on our overall visual experience, they said.