CHECKUP: YOUR MIND SEES MORE THAN IT TELLS.

Byline: - Staff and Wire Services

Your mind may not tell you all that you see, claims new research.

Scientists at the University of Minnesota and the University of California, San Diego, tested people's vision by projecting incredibly fine lines directly onto their retinas. They found the brain registered the lines - 65 within the width of a pinky finger - even when people saw them only as a blur.

The results show that not everything in the visual cortex, the part of the brain that processes visual information, becomes conscious knowledge, says study co-author Sheng He, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota.

``This particular study tells us that even in the brain, the visual cortex in particular, neurons can still resolve very fine details that are not perceived. Neurons are capable of defining much further detail than previously thought,'' says He.

The study involved two people, a common practice when examining a very basic, uniform function in humans, He says.

Visual perception expert Peter Lennie, professor of neural science at New York University in Manhattan, says the study is ``a careful and elegant analysis of how visual information is used in the cortex to shape visual perception, while not itself being accessible to consciousness.''

FOCUSING ON LAZY EYE: The notion that children are good candidates for LASIK eye surgery is still controversial. To date, the focus has been on treating children with severe amblyopia or ``lazy eye'' - a condition that if left untreated past age 7 or 8 results in permanently reduced vision. West Hills ophthalmologist and UCLA faculty member Jonathan Davidorf, M.D., was among the first doctors in the U.S. to study the efficacy of treating children with LASIK. Davidorf, who was featured May 7 in this health section, is currently enrolling children with lazy eye for a new pediatric LASIK study. Candidates must have failed conventional therapies such as glasses, contact lenses and eye patches. For more information, contact the Davidorf Eye Group at [phone].