Evidence map›Paper›PMID 28193817›Full record

ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2017

Behavioural and physiological limits to vision in mammals.

Greg D Field, Alapakkam P Sampath

Open access · bronzeAbstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
22citing papers in PubMed
2.8field-weighted citation impact, top 10% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

22 citing papers in PubMed, 45 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Review
  2. The Effects of Light on Vertebrate Welfare: A Review.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025
    Review
  3. The Role of the CaThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Nocturnal camouflage through background matching against moonlight.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
    Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
  8. Article
  9. Vision: Life on the dark side.Current biology : CB · 2022
    Article
  10. Arrestin Facilitates Rhodopsin DephosphorylationThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2022
    Article
  11. Article
  12. Glycine Release Is Potentiated by cAMP via EPAC2 and CaThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2021
    Article
  13. Article
  14. Scene statistics and noise determine the relative arrangement of receptive field mosaics.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021
    Article
  15. Article
  16. Review
  17. Review
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Greg D FieldDepartment of Neurobiology, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC 27710, USA field@neuro.duke.edu.
Alapakkam P SampathStein Eye Institute, Department of Ophthalmology, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA asampath@jsei.ucla.edu.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0785-9577
Duke University · US

Funding

Vision Research Core at UCLAP30EY000331 · NEI · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES · PI Gregory Darin Field, DAVID S WILLIAMS · 1985 to 2026
$16.8M
Functional characteristics of rod pathways in the retinaR01EY017606 · NEI · UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA · PI SAMPATH, ALAPAKKAM P · 2006 to 2015
$3.7M
Analyses of retinal circuits after rod rescue in a mouse model of human blindnessR01EY027193 · NEI · UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA · PI CHEN, JEANNIE, FIELD, GREGORY DARIN · 2016 to 2020
$2.7M
Light adaptation and circadian modulation of parallel processing in retinaR01EY024567 · NEI · UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA · PI FIELD, GREGORY DARIN · 2014 to 2018
$2.0M
NEI NIH HHS P30 EY000331NEI NIH HHS R01 EY017606NEI NIH HHS R01 EY024567NEI NIH HHS R01 EY027193
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Human vision is exquisitely sensitive-a dark-adapted observer is capable of reliably detecting the absorption of a few quanta of light. Such sensitivity requires that the sensory receptors of the retina, rod photoreceptors, generate a reliable signal when single photons are absorbed. In addition, the retina must be able to extract this information and relay it to higher visual centres under conditions where very few rods signal single-photon responses while the majority generate only noise. Critical to signal transmission are mechanistic optimizations within rods and their dedicated retinal circuits that enhance the discriminability of single-photon responses by mitigating photoreceptor and synaptic noise. We describe behavioural experiments over the past century that have led to the appreciation of high sensitivity near absolute visual threshold. We further consider mechanisms within rod photoreceptors and dedicated rod circuits that act to extract single-photon responses from cellular noise. We highlight how these studies have shaped our understanding of brain function and point out several unresolved questions in the processing of light near the visual threshold.This article is part of the themed issue 'Vision in dim light'.

Indexed as

Vision, OcularVisual PerceptionAnimalsMammalsSensory Thresholdsphoton detectionphysical limitsrod photoreceptorscotopic visionsignal processingvisual sensitivity

Identifiers

PMID28193817
PMCPMC5312022
OpenAlexW2588173842

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.