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Scientists find how brain sees color

Discovery could one day help the blind

LONDON, Jan 29 — Scientists have
discovered how the brain perceives color
in a finding that could one day help
people who have lost their sight.
     

BY STUDYING MACAQUE MONKEYS,
researchers at the University of
Texas-Houston Medical School have
shown how modules of cells called “thin
stripes” in a particular region of the brain
are arranged and perceive colors.
       “This finding provides the first
physiological basis for the perception of
the full gamut of color,” said Daniel
Felleman, a professor of neurobiology
and anatomy.
       Felleman and his team mapped
changes in blood flow along the stripes in
the brains of the monkeys while showing
them a series of color. Their findings are
reported in the science journal Nature.
       While looking at different colors the
blood flow peaks in the brains of the
monkeys shifted systematically in specific
portions of the stripes. An area with a
peak flow for red was next to the portion
that peaked for orange, then yellow, etc.

       “We believe that the brain uses a
spatial code for color such that the
location of the peak activity within these
color maps determines the color that you
see,” Felleman added in a statement.
       Although the research was done in
macaques, the scientists believe
mechanisms in the human brain would
work in a similar way and that the
knowledge could be used to develop
devices to help the blind.
       “You always hope that knowing the
basic mechanisms of brain coding and
perceptual processing would allow you to
some day have a prosthetic aid that
would activate the brain in the same way
that the eye normally does,” Felleman
added.
       
       © 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights
reserved. Republication or redistribution
of Reuters content is expressly prohibited
without the prior written consent of
Reuters.
       

       
   
Nature Magazine

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