ArticleScience advances2025
Nonlinear spatial integration allows the retina to detect the sign of defocus in natural scenes.
Article in Science advances, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Longitudinal changes in retinal image quality in school-aged children.Biomedical optics express · 2026Article
- Photopic pupil size, foveal anatomy and emmetropisation: a cross-sectional study in adult eyes.BMJ open ophthalmology · 2026Article
- Orthokeratology and retinal risk: a new dimension in myopia control.Translational pediatrics · 2026Article
- A Predictive Model for Personalized Fitting of Peripheral Defocus Spectacles Based on Ocular Biometric Parameters.Clinical optometry · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
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Abstract
Eye growth is regulated by the visual input. Many studies suggest that the retina can detect whether a visual image is focused in front of or behind the back of the eye and modulate eye growth to bring it back to focus. How can the retina distinguish between these two types of defocus? Here, we simulated how eye optics transforms natural images and recorded how the isolated retina responds to different types of simulated defocus. We found that some ganglion cell types could distinguish between an image focused in front of or behind the retina by estimating spatial contrast. Aberrations in the eye optics made spatial contrast, but not luminance, a reliable cue to distinguish these two types of defocus. Our results suggest a mechanism for how the retina can estimate the sign of defocus and provide an explanation for several results aiming at mitigating strong myopia by slowing down eye growth.
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