Episode 528 - How our senses pass information to our brains

How does your body pass information along to your brain? The thalamus connects those sensory inputs back to your cerebral cortex but it's a lot sparser than you'd think. The synapses that link your senses to your cortex are often weak and rare, but their diversity gives them a boost. Lots of diverse synapses with different strengths help you perceive the world more clearly. Do both your eyes get equally treated by your brain?

1. Aygul Balcioglu, Rebecca Gillani, Michael Doron, Kendyll Burnell, Taeyun Ku, Alev Erisir, Kwanghun Chung, Idan Segev, Elly Nedivi. Mapping thalamic innervation to individual L2/3 pyramidal neurons and modeling their ‘readout’ of visual input. Nature Neuroscience, 2023; DOI: 10.1038/s41593-022-01253-9
2. Joel Bauer, Simon Weiler, Martin H.P. Fernholz, David Laubender, Volker Scheuss, Mark Hübener, Tobias Bonhoeffer, Tobias Rose. Limited functional convergence of eye-specific inputs in the retinogeniculate pathway of the mouse. Neuron, 2021; DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2021.05.036