New function for rods in daylight

Vision - so crucial to human health and well-being - depends on job-sharing by just a few cell types, the rod cells and cone cells, in our retina. Botond Roska and his group have identified a novel function for rod photoreceptor cells in the retina in daylight. Driven by cones and mediated by horizontal cells, rods help to increase contrast information at times when they are not directly sensing light. The retina thus repurposes its cells in different light conditions to increase the amount of visual information about the environment. Task sharing in the retina seemed clear: Two different kinds of photoreceptor cells take on two different visual tasks. Rods allow us to see at night, cones operate during the day and enable color vision. However, the question as to why there are about 20 times more rods than cones in a human retina, when daytime vision is much more relevant for us, has usually led to a shrug of shoulders.