Sub-cone visual resolution by active, adaptive sampling in the human foveola

The foveated architecture of the human retina and the eye's mobility enables prime spatial vision, yet the interplay between photoreceptor cell topography and the constant motion of the eye during fixation remains unexplored. With in vivo foveal cone-resolved imaging and simultaneous microscopi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:eLife 2024-10, Vol.13
Main Authors: Witten, Jenny L, Lukyanova, Veronika, Harmening, Wolf M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acuity
adaptive optics
Adult
Drift
Eye
Female
Fixation, Ocular - physiology
Fovea Centralis - physiology
Humans
Hypotheses
Male
Motion detection
Neurophysiology
Neuroscience
nyquist limit
Oculomotor behavior
Oculomotor system
Optics
Photic Stimulation
Photoreceptors
psychophysics
Quantitative psychology
Retina
Retinal Cone Photoreceptor Cells - physiology
Sampling
spatial summation
temporal summation
Visual acuity
Visual Acuity - physiology
Visual stimuli
Young Adult
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Description
Summary:The foveated architecture of the human retina and the eye's mobility enables prime spatial vision, yet the interplay between photoreceptor cell topography and the constant motion of the eye during fixation remains unexplored. With in vivo foveal cone-resolved imaging and simultaneous microscopic photo stimulation, we examined visual acuity in both eyes of 16 participants while precisely recording the stimulus path on the retina. We find that resolution thresholds were correlated with the individual retina's sampling capacity, and exceeded what static sampling limits would predict by 18%, on average. The length and direction of fixational drift motion, previously thought to be primarily random, played a key role in achieving this sub-cone diameter resolution. The oculomotor system finely adjusts drift behavior towards retinal areas with higher cone densities within only a few hundred milliseconds to enhance retinal sampling.
ISSN:2050-084X
2050-084X
DOI:10.7554/eLife.98648