A proposal for a Brain and Mental Health Research Institute has been submitted to the CIHR (Jan. 21, 2000) and circulated widely among the Canadian neuroscience research community. It was prepared by a panel of distinguished Canadian neuroscientists, including several whose research interests are related to vision and the visual system. It is evident that substantial time and effort have gone into this proposal, and that it tries very hard to appeal to a broad spectrum of lay as well as scientific interests.

Unfortunately this proposal does not speak to the needs of the many Canadian neuroscientists who work in field related to vision. The eye and vision, optometry and ophthalmology, have been largely ignored; they are mentioned just enough to imply awareness that this system exists. It seems to have been useful to note that vision research well supported in the US; the one reference to "eye" notes that the National Eye Institute provides substantial funding for neuroscience research. Except for this lone reference to "eye" and three to "vision" or "visual" (not including numerous references to vision for the future), however, there is nothing; a word search gave no hits for amblyopia, AMD, ARMD, blind, blindness, ciliary, cornea, electroretinogram, -ph, -phy, ERG, focus (except as in "goal" or "objective"), glaucoma, globe, image, lens, macula, myopia, hyper(metr)opia, optic, orbit, photoreceptor, -ion, rod, cone, retina, retinopathy, retinitis, see, sight (except for "oversight" or "insight"), strabismus, striate, uvea, or uveitis. Other sensory systems fared no better; "sensory" was mentioned only three times, pain and the control of movement and posture are mentioned briefly, and perception, perceptive, and perceptual merit no attention at all.

Thus the visual system, which dominates a substantial minority of brain anatomy and function, is invoked as a conduit for funding in brain and mental health research but not as an area of any interest or importance in its own right. Why should it not be of interest to Canadian citizens and brain scientists? After all, vision has been the career focus of David Hubel, born and educated in Canada and a Nobel Laureate. Is there any interest in the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of genetic diseases in the nervous system? The genetics of rod and cone degenerations is one of the great success stories in any neural system, and one in which Canadian scientists have made very strong contributions. Do we care about our aging population and its escalating demands for health care? Age-related macular degeneration, which makes one legally blind, is epidemic among our senior citizens. Do we want to decrease health care costs? Eyeglasses and examinations for the 25% of our population who are myopes cost $1 billion per year, and might be preventable. Are visual disorders not prevalent or serious enough to merit attention? Glaucoma and diabetes, by damaging the neural apparatus of the retina, are major causes of adult visual disability. Is the public not ready to support vision research? The remarkable success of the National Eye Institute, private eye foundations and eye research institutes throughout the US attests to the intensity of public interest in this research field and the depth of support for funding it.

It would be a huge mistake not to make vision a centerpiece, or at least give it a place of prominence, in the new CIHR. Exclusion of vision from CIHR programs in neuroscience may be the strongest argument possible for establishing a separate institute for research in vision and ophthalmology.

William K. Stell, Ph.D., M.D.
Professor, Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine;
Governor, VHRC

E-mail: wstell@ucalgary.ca

Follow up to Vision, Too, is Neuroscience Editorial

All those of you who have been aggravated by neuroscience's CIHR proposal that virtually Ignores vision will wonder how the "scholars" select their information. The pre-eminent journal Cell has a special supplement of "Neural Science - A Century of Progress and the Mysteries that Remain" that devotes 1/3 of its text pages (16/48) to "The Model System of Vision." (The article can be found, and downloaded from http://www.cell.com/content/vol100/issueS4 )
Remarkable, no?

Martin J. Steinbach, Ph. D.,
Professor of Psychology & Biology, York University
Professor of Ophthalmology, University of Toronto
Vice President, VHRC

E-mail: mjs@yorku.ca