Retinal waves prime visual motion detection by simulating future optic flow

Developing neurons practice for real life As a mouse runs forward across the forest floor, the scenery that it passes flows backwards. Geet al . show that the developing mouse retina practices in advance for what the eyes must later process as the mouse moves. Spontaneous waves of retinal activity flow in the same pattern as would be produced days later by actual movement through the environment. This patterned, spontaneous activity refines the responsiveness of cells in the brain’s superior colliculus, which receives neural signals from the retina to process directional information. —PJH