Assistant professor Bobby department of Neurobiology at The University of Chicago, explains how mapping the way neurons connect could unlock the secrets to being human.
2015 to 2019 - discovery of
Scientists have discovered a new type of photoreceptor protein that is about 50 times more efficient at capturing light than the rhodopsin, a protein that resides in cell membranes in the retina of the human eye.
The protein called LITE-1, was discovered in the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, photoreceptor actually comes from a family of taste receptor proteins first discovered in insects, by the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology at the University of Michigan Medical School. But, these, however, are not the same taste receptors as in mammals. A pair of nurons
Human taste receptors, as defined by being connected to the tasting areas of the brain, aren’t particularly tuned to hydrogen peroxide , but there are receptors in our eyes which are.
The obvious hypothesis is that the eye uses these receptors to detect the effects of excess UV light in the eye, perhaps triggering the eye to close (though that isn’t known for now). What is known is that the roundworm uses just one pair of neurons to do its light detection. Why Caenorhabditis elegans?
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