Fun with Wood Decay Fungi

In this video Drs. Samer Hattar and Tiffany Schmidt describe how light detection via the photopigment melanopsin in a conventional type of retinal gar1glion cell, the ON alpha cell, modulates contrast sensitivity which is necessary for image vision. This discovery shows that even in the presence of fully functional rods and cones (the classical photoreceptors necessary for vision) contrast sensitivity depends on melanopsin expression in the RGCs, the output neurons from the retina to the brain.