Retinal Rhythms

We can all feel the effects of our internal body clocks, making sure we’re hungry at lunchtime and ready to go to sleep at bedtime, all the while coordinating a host of processes behind the scenes. These circadian rhythms are controlled locally in most of our tissues, but synchronised by the central nervous system, which in turn is tuned to day and night cycles thanks to input from the retina. Local time-keeping in the retina itself, however, occurs independently from the brain; instead, the rhythm is set by a light-sensitive protein known as neuropsin, highlighted in blue in the mouse retina shown. Related proteins have long been known to be responsible for colour vision, and for passing on light signals to the central circadian clock, but the importance of neuropsin remained a mystery until very recently. With more research, other roles could be uncovered for this poorly-understood protein.

Written by Emmanuelle Briolat

Emmanuelle Briolat

Writer

A researcher specialising in visual signals in Lepidoptera, camouflage and the effects of light pollution, Emmanuelle’s writing covers a range of topics, from biomedical research to children’s books about moth defences.

Website

• Image by Wendy Yue
• Department of Ophthalmology, University of Washington Medical School, Seattle, WA and The Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
• Originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Research published in PNAS, September 2015