Second Visual System Overview
Neural Coding of Visual Movement and Attention in the 2nd visual system
(NIH supported through 2012)
Martha Bickford
UofL Medical School
Christian Casanova
University of Montreal
Conscious visual perception relies on a pathway from the retina to lateral geniculate nucleus to primary visual cortex. But human patients with damage to the primary visual cortex can detect moving visual stimuli without conscious perception of those objects, a phenomenon known as "blindsight". This residual visual function is thought to involve a 2nd visual pathway including the superior colliculus, pulvinar and extrastriate visual cortex. This unconscious pathway processes information about visual movement and also likely mediates aspects of attention. Dr. Martha Bickford (Department of Anatomical Sciences and Neurobiology) and I received a 5-year NIH grant to conduct experiments to determine how neural information is transferred in this pathway in the tree shrew brain. This project involves anatomical, physiological and optical brain imaging studies. The imaging is performed in our collaborator Dr. Christian Casanova's lab at the University of Montreal.