Oxyopia Abstract

January 12, 2007
Friday, 4 PM
489 Minor Hall

Jeremy Nathans, MD, PhD
Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Host: TBA

  Russell De Valois Memorial Lecture [info]

Title

The Evolution of Human Color Vision

Abstract

The present-day structures of the human cone photopigment genes reflect one path to the evolutionary acquisition of trichromatic color vision in the primate lineage. Ongoing rearrangements in these genes produce a wide variety of variant color vision phenotypes, including ones that may subserve more complex color vision capabilities. Some of the steps in the development of human cone photoreceptors and in the evolution of human trichromacy have been reconstructed by genetic manipulations in the mouse. The results of these experiments support the idea that normal color vision in humans and other primates involves a stochastic component during the development of cone photoreceptors and the neural circuitry for chromatic discrimination.

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