The neuroscientist speaker explores how our brains construct reality through senses, focusing on retinal research and diseases like retinitis pigmentosa and glaucoma. Diverse perceptions of colors, shaped by retinal biology, highlight a continuum of sensory abilities. 'The Dress' phenomenon illustrates how experiences shape color perceptions, challenging intrinsic color notions. Within the 'Goldilocks zone' of the electromagnetic spectrum, the speaker explains how our brains interpret wavelengths as colors. The talk concludes with a call for compassion, recognizing unique perceptions while collectively adapting to a shared reality. Dr. Bryan William Jones is a neuroscientist and photographer. His neuroscience focuses upon understanding the retina and how neurons in the visual system are wired together in a complex topology that allows the computation of visual information. Understanding what the evolution of neural circuitry can teach us about how retinas process visual information can teach us principles of information processing not just in neural systems, but potentially also in biologically inspired computing. The work is funded through the study of retinal degenerative diseases to understand how neural structure, organization and circuitry changes in neurodegenerative disease.

Bryan’s photographic work is a tacit personal reminder of why he works in retinal and visual sciences. Understanding how we perceive the world through neural circuits involved in vision is compelling enough. But understanding how neural circuits are altered in diseases like retinitis pigmentosa, glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis drives the work. He has been published or his work discussed internationally and has appeared in museums, have been used in documentary films, and numerous books on various topics. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx