In a study published in Nature, Frank S. Werblin, professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California at Berkeley, and doctoral student Boton Roska, MD, showed that the optic nerve carries ten to twelve output channels, each of which carries only a small amount of information about a given scene.2 One group of what are called ganglion cells sends information only about edges (changes in contrast). Another group detects only large areas of uniform color, whereas a third group is sensitive only to the backgrounds behind figures of interest.
