How does the brain interpret what we see?
Our vision works by the light around us being captured by a large number of light-sensitive cells located in the retinas at the back of our eyes. The light is converted into signals that are sent to the brain and then converted again into visual impressions.
Nobel Laureates Torsten Wiesel, born on this day, and David Hubel clarified how this process works during the 1960s. In the cerebral cortex, signals are analysed in sequence by cells with the specific tasks of interpreting contrasts, patterns, and movements. They also showed that this ability develops in children during the initial period after birth.
Through the discoveries of Hubel and Wiesel, we now know that behind the origin of the visual perception in the brain there is a considerably more complicated course of events. They were able to demonstrate that the message about the image falling on the retina undergoes a step-wise analysis in a system of nerve cells stored in columns. In this system, each cell has its specific function and is responsible for a specific detail in the pattern of the retinal image.
In 1981, Hubel and Wiesel shared the Medicine Prize with Roger Sperry who made discoveries concerning differences in the right and left hemispheres in our brain: https://bit.ly/2XSL3Ce
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