Colour vision

Most image-forming animal eyes encode light as a function of space, time, and wavelength. “Colour vision” is associated with the latter. At its most fundamental level, decoding wavelength information in light requires combining the signals from just two spectrally distinct photoreceptors neurons. Such a basic circuit does not require sophisticated eye optics, and accordingly forms of rudimentary spectral opponency is thought to long predate image forming vision. “Colour vision” was therefore probably also already a key staple ingredient of retinal circuits when early proto-vertebrates began evolving full-blown eyes during the Cambrian. How then did vertebrate lineages and species make use of this amazing, pre-existing machinery as they diversified their many shapes and sizes of full-blown eyes that we see in essentially all vertebrates today? What are the overarching principles of animal colour vision, and, in view of the vastly diverse visual environments on earth, how general can they even be?

Related key publications

Yoshimatsu T, Bartel P, Schroeder C, Janiak FK, St-Pierre F, Berens P, Baden T^$. Near-optimal rotation of colour space by zebrafish cones in vivo. (2020). bioRxiv doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.10.26.356089. direct link. pdf.

Bartel P^$, Janiak FK, Osorio D, Baden T^$. Colourfulness as a possible measure of object proximity in the larval zebrafish brain. (2020). bioRxiv doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.03.410241. direct link. pdf.

Zhou M*, Bear J*, Roberts PA, Janiak FK, Semmelhack J, Yoshimatsu T, Baden T^§. (2020). Zebrafish Retinal Ganglion Cells Asymmetrically Encode Spectral and Temporal Information Across Visual Space. Current Biology 30, 2927-2942. (bioRxiv version). direct link. pdf.

Yoshimatsu T^§, Schroeder C, Nevala NE, Berens P, Baden T^§. (2020). Fovea-like Photoreceptor Specializations Underlies Single UV Cone Driven Prey-Capture Behaviour in Zebrafish. Neuron (107):1-18. direct link. (bioRxiv version).  pdf. Primer by Westo and Ala-Laurila.

Zimmermann MJY^§, Chagas AM, Bartel P, Pop S, Prieto Godino LL, Baden T^§. (2020). LED Zappelin’: An open source LED controller for arbitrary spectrum visual stimulation and optogenetics during 2-photon imaging. HardwareX e00127 (bioRxiv version). doi: direct link. pdf.

Zimmermann MJY*, Nevala NE*, Yoshimatsu T*, Osorio D, Nilsson DE, Berens P, Baden T^§. (2018). Zebrafish differentially process colour across visual space to match natural scenes. Current Biology 28(1-15). direct link. (bioRxiv version). pdf.

Franke K*, Chagas AM*, Zhao Z, Zimmermann MJY, Bartel P, Qiu Y, Szatko K, Baden T, Euler T^§. (2019). An arbitrary-spectrum spatial visual stimulator for vision research. eLife 8:e48779. (bioRxiv version). direct link. pdf.

Nevala NE^§ and Baden T^§. (2019). A low-cost hyperspectral scanner for natural imaging above and under water. Scientific Reports (9) 10799. (biorXiv version). direct link. pdf.

Baden T*, Schubert T*, Chang L, Wei T, Zaichuk M, Wissinger B and Euler T^§. (2013). A Tale of Two Retinal Domains: Near Optimal Sampling of Achromatic Contrasts in Natural Scenes Through Asymmetric Photoreceptor Distribution. Neuron 80: 1206-1217. pdf Supplementary [1].

Reviews

Baden T^§ and Osorio D^§. (2019). The Retinal Basis of Vertebrate Color Vision. Annual Review of Vision Science (5). (preprints.org version). direct link. pdf. F1000 recommendation by G Fain.

Seifert M^§, Baden T, Osorio D. (2020). The Retinal Basis of Vision in Chicken. Sem Cell Dev Biol. direct link. (preprints.org version).  pdf.

Below: comparing spectral tunings of photoreceptor outputs across zebrafish (top) and fruit flies (bottom), in relation to the spectral statistics of each retina’s natural environment. From Yoshimatsu et al. 2020 bioRxiv.

Main people involved in colour vision work