A qualitative model of the rod photoreceptor in natural context

Given the intricacies of the retinal neural circuit, which bears a striking resemblance to that of the brain, it is proposed that retinal function goes beyond mere spatiotemporal prefiltering. We hypothesise that aspects related to motion detection and discrimination, anticipation and adaptation to environmental and contextual conditions, which have traditionally been ascribed to the brain, may be supported by neurons in the retina. Such early computations may be dependent on compensative and adaptive mechanisms that stem from qualities intrinsic to the retinal neural circuit and its interaction with the environment (neural transduction time, connectivity patterns, regularities in the input