Advances in visual neuroscience during the past 10 years are
generating a lot of excitement. The ability to record
simultaneously the activity of different clusters of neurons in
the eye has greatly improved our understanding of how our neural
circuits process and integrate visual signals. For example,
recording the impulses from clusters of retinal ganglion cells,
which transmit visual input from the eye to the brain, allows
researchers to characterize completely the information presented
to the visual parts of the brain. The next research front will
involve investigating how neurons interconnect into circuits
that control visually guided behavior, such as when we alter our
path to avoid an obstacle we see. In the next decade, three
recent technical advances will help us learn more about this
neural circuitry. First, scientists can now see complex,
interconnected brain structures using the Brainbow technique,
which employs genetically coded fluorescent proteins that can
mark hundreds of neurons with unique c