Color processing begins with the absorption of light by cone photoreceptors, and progresses through a series of hierarchical stages: Retinal signals carrying color information are transmitted through the lateral geniculate nucleus of the thalamus (LGN) up to the primary visual cortex (V1).

The Opponent Process Theory states that there are color receptors present in the visual system that respond to the four pairs of colors.

The opponent process is a color theory that states that the human visual system interprets information about color by processing signals from cone cells and rod cells in an antagonistic manner.

gray

The human brain color physically appears to be white, black, and red-pinkish while it is alive and pulsating. Images of pink brains are relative to its actual state. The brains we see in movies are detached from the blood and oxygen flow result to exhibit white, gray, or have a yellow shadow.

In a living person, it actually looks pinkish-brown, because it has so many tiny blood vessels called capillaries. White matter is buried deep in the brain, while gray matter is mostly found on the brain’s surface, or cortex.

While after death the brain does turn a grayish color, hence the name, while you’re alive your gray matter is a healthy pink due to all the blood that’s constantly flowing through.

Symptoms of white matter disease may include:

• issues with balance.
• walking slow.
• more frequent falls.
• unable to do more than one thing at a time, like talking while walking.
• depression.
• unusual mood changes.

White matter disease is commonly detected on brain MRI of aging individuals as white matter hyperintensities (WMH), or ‘leukoaraiosis.” Over the years it has become increasingly clear that the presence and extent of WMH is a radiographic marker of small cerebral vessel disease and an important predictor of the life- …

White matter lesions (WMLs) or leukoaraiosis indicate small vessel vascular brain disease as well as degenerative or inflammatory processes. WMLs appear as hyperintense periventricular or subcortical patchy or confluent areas on T2 or fluid-attenuated inversion recovery MRI sequence.

Elderly patients with small punctate cerebral vascular white matter lesions (WMLs) are usually asymptomatic, but they progress to large confluent lesions and can present with subtle functional decline, cognitive impairment, dementia, urinary incontinence, or gait and balance impairment and neuropsychiatric disorders.

Combining these three studies together, it is clear that small (punctate) white matter lesions are extremely common, they are found in roughly half of the otherwise healthy population in their 40’s, and WML increase with age.

Neuroscientists at a UC Berkeley lab have uncovered evidence that a well-known stress hormone trips a switch in stem cells in the brain, causing them to produce a white matter cell that ultimately can change the way circuits are connected in the brain.