Olivier Marre
@oliviermarre.bsky.social
Interested in retinal circuits and computations, vision, neuroscience, myopia, and vision restoration. Researcher at the Vision Institute in Paris.
There is more to do on this, but this is an interesting framework to explain results from studies aiming at slowing down myopia. Stay tuned for more !
October 25, 2025 at 9:16 PM
There is more to do on this, but this is an interesting framework to explain results from studies aiming at slowing down myopia. Stay tuned for more !
Another consequence is that, if you change the spherical aberrations, you might misguide your retina and make the eye more myopic. Actually, near vision does exactly that, and it is an important cause for myopia.
October 25, 2025 at 9:16 PM
Another consequence is that, if you change the spherical aberrations, you might misguide your retina and make the eye more myopic. Actually, near vision does exactly that, and it is an important cause for myopia.
Actually, this is what myopia control glasses are doing ! These glasses reshape the visual input to try to have the retina slow down the eye growth. They are based on various designs, but the common point is that they decrease the spatial contrast received by the retina.
October 25, 2025 at 9:16 PM
Actually, this is what myopia control glasses are doing ! These glasses reshape the visual input to try to have the retina slow down the eye growth. They are based on various designs, but the common point is that they decrease the spatial contrast received by the retina.
First, if this hypothesis is true, then decreasing spatial contrast should “trick” the retina into “believing” the focal plane is in front, and to slow down the eye growth.
October 25, 2025 at 9:15 PM
First, if this hypothesis is true, then decreasing spatial contrast should “trick” the retina into “believing” the focal plane is in front, and to slow down the eye growth.
We thus propose a possible strategy for the retina to detect the sign of defocus and adjust the eye growth: compute spatial contrast, and it works because of spherical aberrations. This gives two predictions for myopia.
October 25, 2025 at 9:15 PM
We thus propose a possible strategy for the retina to detect the sign of defocus and adjust the eye growth: compute spatial contrast, and it works because of spherical aberrations. This gives two predictions for myopia.
Why is spatial contrast informative ? Because of spherical aberrations in the eye optics. This made the positive and negative defocus different.
October 25, 2025 at 9:14 PM
Why is spatial contrast informative ? Because of spherical aberrations in the eye optics. This made the positive and negative defocus different.
When asking what these ganglion cells were doing, we found they computed spatial contrast, i.e. the variance of light intensity inside their receptive fields.
October 25, 2025 at 9:14 PM
When asking what these ganglion cells were doing, we found they computed spatial contrast, i.e. the variance of light intensity inside their receptive fields.
We found some ganglion cells that were always decreasing their firing, no matter what the image, when switching from negative (behind the retina) to positive (in front) defocus.
October 25, 2025 at 9:13 PM
We found some ganglion cells that were always decreasing their firing, no matter what the image, when switching from negative (behind the retina) to positive (in front) defocus.
For this we decompose the problem in the two components: the eye optics, that we simulated, and the retina, that we recorded. We displayed to the retina natural images transformed by the eye optics.
October 25, 2025 at 9:13 PM
For this we decompose the problem in the two components: the eye optics, that we simulated, and the retina, that we recorded. We displayed to the retina natural images transformed by the eye optics.
Why is spatial contrast informative ? Because of spherical aberrations in the eye optics. This made the positive and negative defocus different.
October 25, 2025 at 9:07 PM
Why is spatial contrast informative ? Because of spherical aberrations in the eye optics. This made the positive and negative defocus different.
When asking what these ganglion cells were doing, we found they computed spatial contrast, i.e. the variance of light intensity inside their receptive fields.
October 25, 2025 at 9:07 PM
When asking what these ganglion cells were doing, we found they computed spatial contrast, i.e. the variance of light intensity inside their receptive fields.
We thus asked: what kind of computations would allow the retina to extract the sign of defocus ?
October 25, 2025 at 9:07 PM
We thus asked: what kind of computations would allow the retina to extract the sign of defocus ?
Based on this, several attempts have been made to ‘’trick’’ the retina into “believing” that the focal plane is in front, so that it slows down the eye growth. Results are interesting, but would probably benefit from knowing how the retina does that.
October 25, 2025 at 9:07 PM
Based on this, several attempts have been made to ‘’trick’’ the retina into “believing” that the focal plane is in front, so that it slows down the eye growth. Results are interesting, but would probably benefit from knowing how the retina does that.
…our retina can ! If the image is focused in front of the retina, eye growth is slowed down to try to bring the focal plane into focus. Picture from Carr and Stell.
October 25, 2025 at 9:07 PM
…our retina can ! If the image is focused in front of the retina, eye growth is slowed down to try to bring the focal plane into focus. Picture from Carr and Stell.
Can we do something about it ? Myopia is an excess of eye growth, and often progress during childhood and adolescence. Can we slow down this growth ? Well, it turns out that…
October 25, 2025 at 9:07 PM
Can we do something about it ? Myopia is an excess of eye growth, and often progress during childhood and adolescence. Can we slow down this growth ? Well, it turns out that…
Myopia is becoming a major public health issue: by 2050, half of the worldwide population should be myopic. Out of these, a significant fraction will be strongly myopic, which comes with a substantial risk of sight-threatening disease.
October 25, 2025 at 9:07 PM
Myopia is becoming a major public health issue: by 2050, half of the worldwide population should be myopic. Out of these, a significant fraction will be strongly myopic, which comes with a substantial risk of sight-threatening disease.
Reposted by Olivier Marre
11/n This way, this inhibition “piggybacks” on existing circuits. Revealing that the retina doesn’t build new circuits for every computation — it repurposes existing ones, using limited wiring to perform multiple computations efficiently. ♻️
October 7, 2025 at 12:19 PM
11/n This way, this inhibition “piggybacks” on existing circuits. Revealing that the retina doesn’t build new circuits for every computation — it repurposes existing ones, using limited wiring to perform multiple computations efficiently. ♻️
Reposted by Olivier Marre
10/n Mechanistically, we propose that ON stimulation in the surround may trigger crossover inhibition that suppresses wide-field GABAergic amacrine cells—normally responsible for surround suppression—thereby disinhibiting distant OFF ganglion cells.
October 7, 2025 at 12:19 PM
10/n Mechanistically, we propose that ON stimulation in the surround may trigger crossover inhibition that suppresses wide-field GABAergic amacrine cells—normally responsible for surround suppression—thereby disinhibiting distant OFF ganglion cells.
Reposted by Olivier Marre
6/n This setup let us directly stimulate individual rod bipolar cells while recording retinal output in real time.
Result? Activating single RBCs drove responses in OFF ganglion cells far beyond their receptive field center 💥
Result? Activating single RBCs drove responses in OFF ganglion cells far beyond their receptive field center 💥
October 7, 2025 at 12:19 PM
6/n This setup let us directly stimulate individual rod bipolar cells while recording retinal output in real time.
Result? Activating single RBCs drove responses in OFF ganglion cells far beyond their receptive field center 💥
Result? Activating single RBCs drove responses in OFF ganglion cells far beyond their receptive field center 💥
Reposted by Olivier Marre
5/n So, to tackle this we combined:
✨ Optogenetics — to control specific neurons
✨ Two-photon holography — to activate single cells precisely
✨ Multi-electrode recordings — to monitor hundreds of ganglion cells simultaneously
✨ Optogenetics — to control specific neurons
✨ Two-photon holography — to activate single cells precisely
✨ Multi-electrode recordings — to monitor hundreds of ganglion cells simultaneously
October 7, 2025 at 12:19 PM
5/n So, to tackle this we combined:
✨ Optogenetics — to control specific neurons
✨ Two-photon holography — to activate single cells precisely
✨ Multi-electrode recordings — to monitor hundreds of ganglion cells simultaneously
✨ Optogenetics — to control specific neurons
✨ Two-photon holography — to activate single cells precisely
✨ Multi-electrode recordings — to monitor hundreds of ganglion cells simultaneously