Olivier Marre
oliviermarre.bsky.social
Olivier Marre
@oliviermarre.bsky.social
Interested in retinal circuits and computations, vision, neuroscience, myopia, and vision restoration. Researcher at the Vision Institute in Paris.
Reposted by Olivier Marre
Excited to share our paper now published in Cell!
'Zebrafish use spectral information to suppress the visual background'

Huge thanks to @neurofishh.bsky.social & @teuler.bsky.social

@cellpress.bsky.social @cp-cell.bsky.social

👇🏻
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
Zebrafish use spectral information to suppress the visual background
Vertebrate eyes first evolved in water, where spectral content rapidly fades with distance. Zebrafish exploit this loss by antagonizing cone signals to suppress the background, pointing to distance es...
www.cell.com
November 4, 2025 at 9:16 AM
Reposted by Olivier Marre
This is really cool work! Congrats, Olivier, and the whole team!
October 26, 2025 at 6:59 AM
Happy to share my first work with a connection to myopia, a collaboration with EssilorLuxottica
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Nonlinear spatial integration allows the retina to detect the sign of defocus in natural scenes
The retina can easily detect whether the eye is too small or too big thanks to the imperfections of the eye optics.
www.science.org
October 25, 2025 at 9:07 PM
Reposted by Olivier Marre
The final bit of work from my PhD just got published at JOV! We looked at similarity judgements made for naturalistic image patches, and whether these are predicted by simple image statistics… (spoiler: yep!)

Link to paper: doi.org/10.1167/jov....

1/11
Low-level features predict perceived similarity for naturalistic images | JOV | ARVO Journals
doi.org
October 8, 2025 at 7:13 AM
Reposted by Olivier Marre
11/n This way, this inhibition “piggybacks” on existing circuits. Revealing that the retina doesn’t build new circuits for every computation — it repurposes existing ones, using limited wiring to perform multiple computations efficiently. ♻️
October 7, 2025 at 12:19 PM
Reposted by Olivier Marre
10/n Mechanistically, we propose that ON stimulation in the surround may trigger crossover inhibition that suppresses wide-field GABAergic amacrine cells—normally responsible for surround suppression—thereby disinhibiting distant OFF ganglion cells.
October 7, 2025 at 12:19 PM
Reposted by Olivier Marre
6/n This setup let us directly stimulate individual rod bipolar cells while recording retinal output in real time.

Result? Activating single RBCs drove responses in OFF ganglion cells far beyond their receptive field center 💥
October 7, 2025 at 12:19 PM
Reposted by Olivier Marre
5/n So, to tackle this we combined:
✨ Optogenetics — to control specific neurons
✨ Two-photon holography — to activate single cells precisely
✨ Multi-electrode recordings — to monitor hundreds of ganglion cells simultaneously
October 7, 2025 at 12:19 PM
Reposted by Olivier Marre
3/n Our hunch: a circuit best known for rod vision — the rod bipolar (RBC) → AII amacrine pathway — might also shape these surround responses under brighter conditions. 🌙➡️💡
October 7, 2025 at 12:19 PM
Reposted by Olivier Marre
🚨 New preprint out from our lab!
📄 The Rod Bipolar Cell Pathway Contributes to Surround Responses in OFF Retinal Ganglion Cells
👉 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
The Rod Bipolar Cell Pathway Contributes To Surround Responses In OFF Retinal Ganglion Cells
Sensory neurons can be influenced by stimuli beyond their receptive field center, yet the mechanisms underlying this surround modulation remain poorly understood. In the retina, many OFF ganglion cell...
www.biorxiv.org
October 7, 2025 at 12:19 PM
Reposted by Olivier Marre
We’re hiring! We’re looking for two RAs to study neuroplasticity in sight loss, sight rescue and development in children and adults @ucl.ac.uk using a wide range of neuroimaging and behavioral methods. Please help spread the word! Apply by 16 Oct! t.ly/q3aYe #neurojobs #NeuroSkyence
Research Assistant at UCL
Recruiting now: Research Assistant on jobs.ac.uk. Click for details and explore more academic job opportunities on the top job board
t.ly
September 27, 2025 at 10:57 AM
Reposted by Olivier Marre
A nice shift in perceived colour between central and peripheral vision. The fixated disc looks purple while the others look blue.

The effect presumably comes from the absence of S-cones in the fovea.

From Hinnerk Schulz-Hildebrandt:
arxiv.org/pdf/2509.115...
September 24, 2025 at 12:04 PM
If you are looking for a book to read and are interested in computational/systems neuroscience or AI, I have a suggestion: trialsanderrors.substack.com/p/a-recommen...
A recommended summer read: "The mechanization of the mind"
If you are working in systems or computational neuroscience, or AI, I would strongly recommend to read “The mechanization of the mind” by Jean-Pierre Dupuy.
trialsanderrors.substack.com
August 16, 2025 at 6:54 AM
Reposted by Olivier Marre
A very clear, detailed, and fair account on the (obscure?) French way to distribute positions in academia, and then manage to actually do some research! Thanks Olivier
In case this is helpful for anyone, here is a post on how to get a job in french academia : trialsanderrors.substack.com/p/getting-a-...
Aimed at non-french scientists who are curious, but french ones may find it useful too.
June 4, 2025 at 7:13 AM
In case this is helpful for anyone, here is a post on how to get a job in french academia : trialsanderrors.substack.com/p/getting-a-...
Aimed at non-french scientists who are curious, but french ones may find it useful too.
June 3, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Reposted by Olivier Marre
Neuropixels and Optogenetics are delighted to announce the birth of

Neuropixels Opto

Combining high-resolution electrophysiology and optogenetics

Today in bioRxiv

960 sites, 28 emitters, 2 colors

By Lakunina, @karolinazsocha.bsky.social, Ladd, et al

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

(1/2)
February 7, 2025 at 9:16 AM
Reposted by Olivier Marre
Some people see spontaneous faint flickering flashes in their visual field, a condition known as Visual Snow Syndrome (VSS, not to be confused with @vssmtg.bsky.social).

Maybe a visual equivalent of the auditory tinnitus?

Here is a very nice study from the lab of @sengelweb.bsky.social.
Visual Snow is Susceptible to the Motion Aftereffect: http://osf.io/u6fcx_v2/
February 8, 2025 at 9:37 AM
Reposted by Olivier Marre
Seeking input: A standardized nomenclature
for the rods and cones of the vertebrate retina

A number of us have been working on a proposal to bring various disconnected naming systems for the vertebrate rods and cones across species into alignment. The basic proposal looks like this:
February 5, 2025 at 3:34 PM
Reposted by Olivier Marre
If you are interested in the contribution of Ibn al-Haytham to vision science, and if you don’t mind reading French, I recommend the book of Michel Imbert “La fin du regard éclairant”

www.vrin.fr/livre/978271...
January 31, 2025 at 10:06 PM
Reposted by Olivier Marre
as a side effect of a sort of "false-fusion" cos the binoc pair acts like a spatial filter. A binoc extension of the previous filter model does the trick, reproduces the newborn results. The results don't imply an "innate neural face representation". The inference was flawed.
doi.org/10.1111/desc...
Staring us in the face? An embodied theory of innate face preference
Human expertise in face perception grows over development, but even within minutes of birth, infants exhibit an extraordinary sensitivity to face-like stimuli. The dominant theory accounts for innate....
doi.org
January 22, 2025 at 9:00 PM
New post: What chess (may have) taught me about neuroscience.
trialsanderrors.substack.com/p/what-chess...
January 20, 2025 at 9:16 PM
Good resolution of 2025: start a blog for thoughts that cannot go in papers (too speculative or preliminary).
January 20, 2025 at 9:13 PM
Reposted by Olivier Marre
Besides being beautiful, the different grouping principles on display across the different artists here is fascinating. It would be fun to see how consistent each person is in terms of how they approach lots of different patterns! #VisionScience
For @bjbalas.bsky.social - screenshot examples where a single line work drawing and the same palette of colors are interpreted differently by different colorists. The fourth picture actually had me double checking to make sure that really is the same pattern.
January 18, 2025 at 7:43 PM
Reposted by Olivier Marre
Clever study that explores the debate between those who claim that color categories are 'innate' and those who argue that they are dependent on language. It turns out that monkeys, unlike humans, do not have consensus color categories, suggesting cognitive mechanisms such as language are required.🧪🧠
January 16, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Reposted by Olivier Marre
🧠 Wonderful speaker in the Neurocolloquium on Jan 23, at 4.15pm: Emilie Macé, Prof in the EXC Cluster Multiscale Bioimaging in Göttingen on how "Visual objects refine the encoding of head direction", live & in Zoom
Host: Robert Ohlendorf @maxplanckcampus.bsky.social
Sign up forms.gle/RoxUFPrj6Dyr...
January 15, 2025 at 9:50 AM