The retina is a light-sensitive tissue in the back of the eye's inner surface. Its nerve cells convert light energy into nerve impulses, which are transmitted to the brain.

The purpose of the five-year grant is to develop a more detailed understanding of how this system handles visual information.

Funds will support intensive studies in which retinal slices from amphibians, whose retinas are similar to those of humans, are bombarded with computerized images. By recording the electrical activity in specific nerve cells when subjected to these visual stimuli, the researchers can begin to determine the function of each nerve cell and how it contributes to the ability to see.

Slaughter, who also is research director of the interdisciplinary Group for Advanced Vision Research at UB, is a pioneer in the study of vision. His findings have been published in the top scientific journals Science and Nature, as well as in leading journals in the vision field.

Slaughter and his colleagues take a unique approach to vision research; they explore the function of individual receptors and the chemicals that activate them and then relate them to the retinal nerve network.

"We try to correlate functions of a single molecule with the function of the entire retinal system," he said.

His group has discovered the link between receptors and retinal functions, such as perceiving shape, motion in a particular direction and the appearance of light.

The research has application to future treatments for diseases of the vision system, including glaucoma, macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa and diabetes retinopathy.