Brand_Name_Only_Justification.pdf

Brand Name Only Justification

EKB Technologies Ltd. DLP® LightCrafter™ E4500MKII™

The National Eye Institute (NEI) Laboratory of Sensorimotor Research (LSR) performs research in the fundamental brain mechanisms that allow sensory-motor coordination, specifically the visual/oculomotor system. In the Eye Movements and Visual Selection

Section (EMVSS), the goal is to understand the neuronal mechanisms that control saccadic eye movement (a simple behavior by which the line of sight is shifted quickly from one object to another). To examine this process, action potentials generated by neurons in the cerebral cortex of awake behaving test animals are recorded while the animal is exposed to images designed evoke saccadic eye movement. A critical portion of the experimental setup is how the image is presented to the test subject.

While the LSR has historically worked on non-human Primates, the EMVSS has been also working with rodents. Rodents present a unique problem as the spectrum of light they can see is shifted from that of Primates, specifically they can see into the UV range while primates cannot. Thus, far visual stimuli have been constrained to the human spectral range and projector systems are designed for human use.

The EKB Technologies Ltd. DLP® LightCrafter™ E4500MKII™ is the first and only system designed to match the photopigments in the mouse. In particular, the projector has a special "blue" LED closer to the UV end of the light spectrum which matches the short wavelength cone pigment in the mouse. This allows the scientists to utilize the rodent’s full range of spectral stimuli in their investigations of sensory-motor coordination.