- Education
-
Research
Current research
Talent
-
Collaboration
Businesses
Government agencies and institutions
Alumni
-
About AU
Organisation
Job at AU
Retinal contributions to cortical motion processing
2021.02.22 |
| Date | Fri 05 Mar |
| Time | 10:00 — 12:00 |
| Location | Online |
On Friday 5 March at 10:00, Rune Nguyen Rasmussen defends his PhD dissertation entitled "On the contributions of retinal direction selectivity to cortical motion processing".
Vision is an essential sensory modality, and motion is arguably one of the most salient features that the visual system needs to detect. Cells preferentially responding to visual motion in a particular direction are said to be direction-selective (DS), and these were first identified in the primary visual cortex. Since then, DS responses have been observed in the retina of a number of species, including mice, indicating motion analysis has begun even at the earliest stage of the visual hierarchy. These retinal DS cells send projections to the visual cortex via the visual thalamus. Yet little is known about how direction selectivity computed in the retina contributes to motion processing in primary and higher-order areas of the visual cortex. The aim of this PhD project was to provide answers to this question.
Altogether, this PhD dissertation presents a novel account of how the brain processes motion from the visual world. Our work demonstrates that direction selectivity computed at the level of the retina — a stage of the visual hierarchy previously held to provide considerably more mundane contributions to higher-order levels — serves to establish specialized motion responses in distinct areas of the mouse visual cortex. Thus, the findings gathered from these lines of investigation should compel us to revisit our notions of how the brain builds complex visual representations, and underscores the importance of the processing performed in the periphery of sensory systems.
The summary is written by the PhD student.
The defence is public and takes place online. Please read the attached press release for more information.
PhD student Rune Nguyen Rasmussen
Mail: runerasmussen@biomed.au.dk
Phone: (+45) 61337698