Primate retina trades single-photon detection for high-fidelity contrast encoding

Markku Kilpeläinen, Johan Westö, Jussi Tiihonen, Anton Laihi, Daisuke Takeshita, Fred Rieke and Petri Ala-Laurila ()
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Markku Kilpeläinen: University of Helsinki
Johan Westö: Aalto University
Jussi Tiihonen: University of Helsinki
Anton Laihi: University of Helsinki
Daisuke Takeshita: University of Helsinki
Fred Rieke: University of Washington
Petri Ala-Laurila: University of Helsinki

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract How the spike output of the retina enables human visual perception is not fully understood. Here, we address this at the sensitivity limit of vision by correlating human visual perception with the spike outputs of primate ON and OFF parasol (magnocellular) retinal ganglion cells in tightly matching stimulus conditions. We show that human vision at its ultimate sensitivity limit depends on the spike output of the ON but not the OFF retinal pathway. Consequently, nonlinear signal processing in the retinal ON pathway precludes perceptual detection of single photons in darkness but enables quantal-resolution discrimination of differences in light intensity.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-48750-y

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