LONDON: They may be the 'window to the soul', but a new study has revealed that eyes see trouble coming even before the brain notices.
A team at Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, Basel, Switzerland, has claimed that a new type of cell just discovered in the retinas of rodents, could detect an approaching object without the brain's help.
According to researchers, the newly discovered eye cells can warn people that an object is coming nearer, and do so without the brain's help - this ability may have evolved to speed escape from predators, the 'New Scientist' reported.
Neurons that fire in response to horizontal and vertical movements had already been found in the retinas of mammals but the cells known to be sensitive to approaching objects were in the brain, according to researchers.
While investigating mouse eye cells, the researchers noticed one type behaved unusually in response to movement. And further analysis of this one kind of retinal cell revealed that it fired only when an object approached, the researchers found.
According to the researchers, people have similar cells, which alert us to approaching objects faster than our brain cells can.
"It's an alarm system that is as close to the front end of the organism as possible. If you left it to the brain to respond, it might be too late," lead researcher Botond Roska was quoted as saying.
Next the researchers plan to discover how the approach-sensitive cells evoke a reaction in the brain.
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