Researchers led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore have, for the first time, recorded a tiny mechanical “twitch” in rod photoreceptors in living human and animal eyes at the moment they detect light. The finding reveals a fundamental mechanism underlying night vision and could enable new, non-invasive ways to assess retinal health. Rod cells are essential for low-light vision and are often the first affected in age-related retinal diseases such as age-related macular degeneration, which affects an estimated 200 million people worldwide. Current clinical tests for rod function are limited and often subjective. The new approach could lead to objective tools to assess night vision, monitor decline over time and support earlier medical intervention, with further clinical studies planned in Singapore.

Researchers from the Department of Precision Instruments at Tsinghua University have developed a novel model-based deep learning framework that significantly enhances the temporal resolution of computational microscopy. By training a neural network that learns the inherent spatiotemporal correlations in dynamic processes, the team achieved high-fidelity, time-resolved imaging of live biological samples, pushing the boundaries of label-free microscopy. The progress is published in the journal PhotoniX.