ophthalmology neurology cognitive neuroscience psychophysics

This module will teach visual neuroscience from a broad, interdisciplinary point of view. Our modern understanding of vision and visual processing depends not...

This module will teach visual neuroscience from a broad, interdisciplinary point of view. Our modern understanding of vision and visual processing depends not only on the more traditional fields of anatomy, physiology and psychophysics, which remain centrally important, but also on the fields of genetics, molecular and cellular biology, ophthalmology, neurology, cognitive neuroscience and brain imaging. In this module, we will present visual neuroscience as a multidisciplinary, yet integrated field of study.

The aim is to provide students with an understanding of the functional anatomy and neurophysiology of the visual system, and an understanding of how neural activity results in visual perception and in behaviours that depend on vision. You will be introduced to a variety of methods for investigating visual neuroscience including molecular biology, psychophysics, single cell recording, electrophysiology, brain imaging, and the experimental study of patients with brain damage or genetic defects. Lectures will be supported by demonstrations, tutorials and student presentations of research papers.

Indicative lecture topics:

Physiological optics and the photoreceptor mosaic.
	Fundamentals of psychophysics.
	Photoreceptors and phototransduction.
	The retina. (2 lectures)
	Visual psychophysics and sensitivity regulation
	Achromatic & chromatic vision.
	Psychophysics
	Spatial vision.
	Motion.
	Computational neuroscience and the retina
	Central visual pathways
	Multiple visual areas of cortex.
	Hierarchical visual processing.
	Depth perception/Visual Illusions.
	The neural correlate of consciousness.
	fMRI and visual brain function.
	Atypical vision and visual plasticity
	Visual development in babies and infants.

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