09/10/2024 | When lighting conditions change quickly, the eye has to react in a fraction of a second in order to continue to see well. This is helpful or even necessary when, for example, we drive through a forest and steer out of the shade of trees into the sunlight and then back into the shade. ‘In such situations, it is not enough for the photoreceptors in the eye to adapt; an additional correction mechanism is required,’ explains Prof. Dr. Marion Silies from the iDN. Her research group has already shown in previous studies that the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster has a correction mechanism that starts directly behind the photoreceptors. Silies’ team has now deciphered the algorithms, mechanisms and neuronal circuits that make it possible to maintain stable vision in rapidly changing light conditions. The work has been published in Nature Communications.