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2014年12月10日

Spontaneous Activity in Visual System

日 時 2014年12月10日(水) 16:00 より 17:00 まで
講演者 Dr. Donggen Luo
講演者所属 McGovern Institute for Brain Research Center for Quantitative Biology College of Life Sciences, Peking University
お問い合わせ先 視覚情報処理研究部門、吉村由美子 yumikoy@nips.ac.jp
要旨

北京大学のDonggen Luo博士にセミナーをお願いしました。多数のご参集をお待ちしています。
We are going to hold seminar by Dr. Donggen Luo at Peking University. I'm looking forward to your attendance to the seminar.

Our eyes are extremely sensitive to light. Absorption of only 5-7 photons can trigger light perception in our brain. Indeed, rod photoreceptors, the dim-light sensors in our eyes, have the ability to detect single-photon absorption. In another word, the photoactivation of single visual-pigment molecule (light-sensing molecules in photoreceptors) produces an electrical signal large enough to report to the brain. However, rods also have noise. About once per minute, a rod produces a false signal, equivalent to the absorption of a photon, owing to the spontaneous (thermal) activation of a rod-pigment molecule (rhodopsin). This thermal noise limits our absolute visual threshold by acting as “dark light”.