Vision: In the Blink of an Eye

A team from University College London has asked a question of what happens in the brain during an eye blink. We blink 10-15 times per minute, with each nictation lasting 100-150 milliseconds. During that time, the light input is interrupted, without us even noticing it. To study the effects of blinking on the brain, the team used trans-illumination of retina through the palatine bone technique. It turns out that parts of the brain are actually “turned off” during the blink. To read more, either go to the BBC News article or the original article by Davina Bristow, et al. in Current Biology.; or the accompanying editorial by David Burr (Universita di Firenze).