Lynne Kiorpes

Speaker

Lynne Kiorpes, PhD
Professor of Neural Science & Psychology
NYU

Date and Time

Monday, December 2, 2019
11:10 am - 12:30 pm

Location

489 Minor Hall
Berkeley, CA

Lynne Kiorpes's Abstract

Cortical correlates of amblyopia: striate and extrastriate contributions

Amblyopia is a developmental disorder of vision resulting from abnormal visual experience in childhood. Psychophysical studies in amblyopic humans and macaques show losses in basic spatial vision (acuity and contrast sensitivity), but in addition, there are extensive losses in higher order perceptual abilities. These deficient higher order abilities, such as global form and motion perception and perceptual organization, are not predictable from the loss in acuity. Neurophysiological studies of striate cortex in behaviorally characterized amblyopic macaques show that some aspects of amblyopia are reflected in the properties of single neurons, but that overall neural sensitivity far exceeds behavioral sensitivity. Therefore there is information available in the visual system that is not being used to guide visual performance. This talk will explore mechanisms beyond single unit properties in V1 that contribute to the amblyopic visual loss: Interocular and interneuronal interactions in striate cortex and de novo deficits in extrastriate cortex. Current thinking about the neural correlates of amblyopia will be discussed.