Posts classified under: Visual Neurosciences

James Bisley, Ph.D.

Biography

Dr Bisley received his Ph.D. from the University of Melbourne in Australia where he studied the peripheral somatosensory system. He did his first post-doc at the University of Rochester working with Dr Tatiana Pasternak, where he studied the neural mechanisms underlying memory for motion. In 1999, he went to Washington, DC where he worked with Dr Michael E. Goldberg at Georgetown University and the National Eye Institute, studying the neural mechanisms underlying visuo-spatial attention. Dr Bisley moved to Columbia University with Dr Goldberg in 2002 and joined UCLA in 2006.

Gordon Fain, Ph.D.

Biography

A vertebrate photoreceptor uses a G-protein receptor (rhodopsin) and a G-protein cascade to produce the electrical response that signals a change in light intensity. Powerful new techniques have made it possible to understand the working of this cascade in extraordinary detail. The reason for this is that practically every protein involved in the cascade in a photoreceptor, from the pigment molecule rhodopsin to the G-protein and channels, but including also a large number of control proteins, are expressed only in the photoreceptors and nowhere else in the body. This makes it possible with genetic techniques to create mice in which these proteins have been knocked out, over or under expressed, or replaced with proteins of modified structure. We use electrical recording to study the effects of such genetic alterations on the light responses of mouse rods and cones, in order to understand the role of these proteins in the visual cascade. We are especially interested in modulatory enzymes and their function in light and dark adaptation. We also have a long-standing interest in mechanisms of photoreceptor degeneration in genetically inherited disease.

Publications

A selected list of publications:

Fain Gordon, Sampath Alapakkam P   Rod and cone interactions in the retina F1000Research, 2018; 7: .
Morshedian Ala, Woodruff Michael L, Fain Gordon L   Role of recoverin in rod photoreceptor light adaptation The Journal of physiology, 2018; 596(8): 1513-1526.
Morshedian Ala, Toomey Matthew B, Pollock Gabriel E, Frederiksen Rikard, Enright Jennifer M, McCormick Stephen D, Cornwall M Carter, Fain Gordon L, Corbo Joseph C   Cambrian origin of the CYP27C1-mediated vitamin A Royal Society open science, 2017; 4(7): 170362.
Morshedian Ala, Fain Gordon L   Light adaptation and the evolution of vertebrate photoreceptors The Journal of physiology, 2017; 595(14): 4947-4960.
Kaylor Joanna J, Xu Tongzhou, Ingram Norianne T, Tsan Avian, Hakobyan Hayk, Fain Gordon L, Travis Gabriel H   Blue light regenerates functional visual pigments in mammals through a retinyl-phospholipid intermediate Nature communications, 2017; 8(1): 16.
Morshedian Ala, Fain Gordon L   The evolution of rod photoreceptors Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2017; 372(1717): 16.
Ingram Norianne T, Sampath Alapakkam P, Fain Gordon L   Why are rods more sensitive than cones? The Journal of physiology, 2016; 594(19): 5415-26.
Reingruber Jürgen, Holcman David, Fain Gordon L   How rods respond to single photons: Key adaptations of a G-protein cascade that enable vision at the physical limit of perception BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology, 2015; 37(11): 1243-52.
Morshedian Ala, Fain Gordon L   Single-photon sensitivity of lamprey rods with cone-like outer segments Current biology : CB, 2015; 25(4): 484-7.
Reingruber Jürgen, Pahlberg Johan, Woodruff Michael L, Sampath Alapakkam P, Fain Gordon L, Holcman David   Detection of single photons by toad and mouse rods Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2013; 110(48): 19378-83.
Chen Ching-Kang, Woodruff Michael L, Chen Frank S, Chen Yenlin, Cilluffo Marianne C, Tranchina Daniel, Fain Gordon L   Modulation of mouse rod response decay by rhodopsin kinase and recoverin The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2012; 32(45): 15998-6006.
Chen Jeannie, Woodruff Michael L, Wang Tian, Concepcion Francis A, Tranchina Daniel, Fain Gordon L   Channel modulation and the mechanism of light adaptation in mouse rods The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2010; 30(48): 16232-40.
Fain Gordon L, Hardie Roger, Laughlin Simon B   Phototransduction and the evolution of photoreceptors Current biology : CB, 2010; 20(3): R114-24.
Okawa Haruhisa, Sampath Alapakkam P, Laughlin Simon B, Fain Gordon L   ATP consumption by mammalian rod photoreceptors in darkness and in light Current biology : CB, 2008; 18(24): 1917-21.
Dizhoor Alexander M, Woodruff Michael L, Olshevskaya Elena V, Cilluffo Marianne C, Cornwall M Carter, Sieving Paul A, Fain Gordon L   Night blindness and the mechanism of constitutive signaling of mutant G90D rhodopsin The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2008; 28(45): 11662-72.
Fain GL   Why photoreceptors die (and why they don’t), BioEssays, 2006; 28: 344-354.

Mark Frye, Ph.D.

Publications

A selected list of publications:

Mongeau Jean-Michel, Frye Mark A   Drosophila Spatiotemporally Integrates Visual Signals to Control Saccades Current biology : CB, 2017; 27(19): 2901-2914.e2.
Frye Mark A   Insect Vision: A Neuron that Anticipates an Object’s Path Current biology : CB, 2017; 27(19): R1076-R1078.
Omoto Jaison Jiro, Keleş Mehmet Fatih, Nguyen Bao-Chau Minh, Bolanos Cheyenne, Lovick Jennifer Kelly, Frye Mark Arthur, Hartenstein Volker   Visual Input to the Drosophila Central Complex by Developmentally and Functionally Distinct Neuronal Populations Current biology : CB, 2017; 27(8): 1098-1110.
Keleş Mehmet F, Frye Mark A   Object-Detecting Neurons in Drosophila Current biology : CB, 2017; 27(5): 680-687.
Keleş Mehmet, Frye Mark A   The eyes have it eLife, 2017; 6(Pt A): 204-213.
Wasserman Sara M, Frye Mark A   Group behavior: social context modulates behavioral responses to sensory stimuli Current biology : CB, 2015; 25(11): R467-9.
Aptekar Jacob W, Keleş Mehmet F, Lu Patrick M, Zolotova Nadezhda M, Frye Mark A   Neurons forming optic glomeruli compute figure-ground discriminations in Drosophila The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2015; 35(19): 7587-99.
Frye Mark   Elementary motion detectors Current biology : CB, 2015; 25(6): R215-R217.
Wasserman Sara M, Aptekar Jacob W, Lu Patrick, Nguyen Jade, Wang Austin L, Keles Mehmet F, Grygoruk Anna, Krantz David E, Larsen Camilla, Frye Mark A   Olfactory neuromodulation of motion vision circuitry in Drosophila Current biology : CB, 2015; 25(4): 467-72.
Aptekar Jacob W, Keles Mehmet F, Mongeau Jean-Michel, Lu Patrick M, Frye Mark A, Shoemaker Patrick A   Method and software for using m-sequences to characterize parallel components of higher-order visual tracking behavior in Drosophila Frontiers in neural circuits, 2014; 8(11): 130.
Theobald, JC Frye, MA   Animal Behavior: flying back-to-front, Curr. Biol. , 2008; 18(4): r169.
Chow DM Frye MA   Context dependent olfactory enhanced optomotor flight control in Drosophila, J. Exp. Biol. , 2008; 211: 2478-2485.
Duistermars, BJ Frye, MA   Cross-modal visual input for odor tracking during fly flight, Curr. Biol. , 2008; 18(4): 270-275.
Theobald JC Duistermars BJ Ringach DL Frye MA   Flies see second order motion, Curr. Biol. , 2008; 18(11): r464.
Reynolds, A. Frye, M.A.   Free-flight odor tracking in Drosophila is consistent with a mathematically optimal intermittent scale-free search, PLoS ONE, 2007; 2(4): 354.
Frye, MA   The neuromechanics of fly flight control, Invertebrate Neurobiology, 2007; 209-229.
Duistermars, BJ Chow, D Condro, M Frye, MA   The spatial, temporal, and contrast properties of expansion and rotation flight optomotor responses in Drosophila, J. Exp. Biol. , 2007; 210: 3218-3227.
Frye, MA Dickinson, MH   Visual edge orientation shapes free-flight behavior in Drosophila, Fly, 2007; 3: 153-154.
Humbert, J.S. Frye, M.A.   Extracting behaviorally relevant retinal image motion cues via wide-field integration, Proc. IEEE American Controls Conference, 2006; 2724-2729.
Frye, MA Dickinson, MH   Closing the loop between neurobiology and flight behavior in Drosophila Current opinion in neurobiology. , 2004; 14(6): 729-36.
Frye, MA Dickinson, MH   Fly flight: a model for the neural control of complex behavior Neuron. , 2001; 32(3): 385-8.