Open any biology book and you will easily learn that the thalamus is a region of the brain that basically works as a relay that transmits sensory information from everywhere (except the sense of smell) for processing in the cortex (you can read more about this region of the brain in our special article). However, when several Harvard researchers took a closer look at the origin of this relay—the connections between the retina and the thalamus—they discovered something interesting. And the results of the study were published in the journal Cell.