Fornetto C§, Euler T, Baden T§. Zebrafish use spectral information to suppress the visual background. Cell 188 1-17.

Congratulations to Michael Forsthofer on winning a prestigious Wellcome ECA for his exciting work on visual reconfiguration during frog metamorphosis

Congratulations to Michael Forsthofer for winning the audience award at ERM 2025 in Pecs, Hungary

Some conference impressions, downloadable posters and slides here

Check out all of our European Retina Meeting 2025 posters online!

Kafetzis G§, Bok M§, Baden T§*, Nilsson DE§*. A median eye origin of the vertebrate retina explains its unique circuitory. bioRxiv. doi 10.1101/2025.09.11.675609 .

On the cover: The anole lizard, like other reptiles including birds, relies on seven distinct photoreceptor types for vision: rods, four “ancestral” single cones (sensitive to red, green, blue, and ultraviolet), and two members of the so-called tetrapod double cone. Through comparative single-cell transcriptomics, Tommasini et al. trace the evolutionary origins of these cell types…

Baden T§, [18 authors], Corbo JC. A standardized nomenclature for the rods and cones of the vertebrate retina. PLoS Biology 23(5): e3003157.

Tommasini D§, Yoshimatsu T§, Puthussery T§, Baden T§, Shekhar K§. Comparative transcriptomic insights into the evolution of vertebrate photoreceptor types. Current Biology 35:1-12.

We are delighted that our joint proposal “Eyes inside out: Visual coding without a multilayered retina in squid and worms” with Mike Bok (Lund, Sweden) was selected for funding in the latest round of HFSP grants.

We are grateful to the Leverhulme Trust for funding our proposal “Crystals in the eye”

For a sneak-peek, click below!

Baden T§, [18 authors], Corbo JC. A standardized nomenclature for the rods and cones of the vertebrate retina. PLoS Biology 23(5): e3003157.

Fornetto C§, Euler T, Baden T§.
Vertebrate vision is ancestrally based on competing cone circuits. bioRxiv. doi 10.1101/2024.11.19.624320 .

UCL Ophthalmology, Departmental Seminar 2024/11/01

Tommasini D§, Yoshimatsu T§, Baden T§, Shekhar K§. Comparative transcriptomic insights into the evolutionary origin of the tetrapod double cone. bioRxiv. doi 10.1101/2024.11.04.621990.

We are looking forward to attending the International Conference for Neuroethology 2024 next week. As always, we have deposited all posters online ahead of the conference – check them out here at your leisure!

Congratulations to our very own Simen for winning this year’s Sussex Neuroscience PhD talk Prize for his work on space-colour processing in the zebrafish retina!

Herzog T§, Yoshimatsu T, Moya Diaz J, James B, Lagnado L§ and Baden T§. A heterogeneous population code at the first synapse of vision. bioRxiv. doi 10.1101/2024.05.03.592379v1

We are delighted that our ERC-Advanced grant Cones4Action (LS8) to study the evolution of cone circuits leading to behaviour has been retained for funding

Baden T§. The vertebrate retina: A window into the evolution of computation in the brain. Current Opinion in Behavioural Sciences 57, June 2024, 101391.

Part I. Ancestral Photoreceptor Diversity as the basis of Visual Behaviour. Nat EcoEvo.

Part II. From Water to Land: Evolution of Photoreceptor Circuits for Vision in Air. PLoS Biol

Doran K, Seifert M, Yovanovich CAM, Baden T§. Distance function for spike prediction. doi: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2312.01966. arXiv.

Congratulations to George Kafetzis!

Seifert M§, Roberts PA, Kafetzis G, Osorio D§, Baden T§. Birds multiplex spectral and temporal visual information via retinal On- and Off-channels. Nature Communications. 14, 5308 (2023).

We are delighted that Tessa Herzog has passed her PhD viva!

For her PhD, which was done in collaboration with Leon Lagnado, Tessa looked at how cone-photoreceptorsd in the live zebrafish eye encode visual stimuli at the level of glutamate release.

Wang X§, Roberts PA, Yoshimatsu T, Lagnado L*§, Baden T*§. Amacrine cells differentially balance zebrafish colour circuits in the central and peripheral retina. Cell Reports 42:112055.

Seifert et al:

Birds multiplex spectral and temporal visual information via retinal On– and Off–channels

We are most delighted that Marvin Seifert has just passed his PhD viva!

Congratulations to Tessa Herzog and George Kafetzis for winning this year’s Talk and Posters awards, respectively, at the annual Sussex Life Sciences PhD symposium!

The evolution of computation in the brain: Insights from studying the retina.

Integrative Chronobiology and Visual Neuroscience series.

We are delighted that Filip Janiak has been awarded this year’s Sussex Neuroscience postdoc award. The award  recognises both Filip’s recent publication on non-telecentric 2P microscopy, and more broadly his numerous contributions to the Department’s scientific activities!

We are delighted that our “my word” piece on retinal orientation is now out in Current Biology. The piece is dedicated to the late Mike Land FRS

F. K. Janiak, P. Bartel, M. R. Bale, T. Yoshimatsu, E. Komulainen, M. Zhou, K. Staras, L. L. Prieto-Godino, T. Euler, M. Maravall & T. Baden (2022). Non-telecentric two-photon microscopy for 3D random access mesoscale imaging. Nature Communications 13, 544 (2022)

Wang X§, Roberts PA, Yoshimatsu T, Lagnado L*§, Baden T*§. Amacrine cells shape retinal functions while dynamically preserving circuits for colour vision. bioRxiv doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.01.22.477338.

Congratulations to Dr John Bear for passing his PhD viva!

We are honored to share this year’s Boehringer Ingelheim-FENS Research Award with Prof. Tatjana Tchumachenko

We are delighted to see two related papers on spectral coding in outer and inner retina come out on the same day!

We are pleased to welcome Dr. Chiara Fornetto to the lab

Schroeder C$, Oesterle J, Berens P*, Yoshimatsu T*, Baden T*$. Distinct Synaptic Transfer Functions in Same-Type Photoreceptors. eLife 10:e67851.

We are delighted to see this review on show zebrafish process “colour” published in Current Biology

Congratulations to DR Mingyi Zhou for passing her PhD viva!

We are pleased to welcome to Eira and Carola to the lab.

Eira is part of the new Leverhulme DTC on biomimetic AI at Sussex. She will be doing her PhD on individual differences in zebrafish vision. Her project is co-supervised by Jenny Bosten from Sussex Psychology.

Carola is a new MarieCurie Fellow, and she will work on “Colour vision in the dark”, using the frog visual system as a model.

Many thanks again to Young IBRO for inviting us to give the inaugural talk in their new “NextInNeuro” webinar series! The recording from our talk “Retinal Circuits for Colour Vision: From Fish to Humans” available online.