Scottish Vision Group Meeting, Isle of Arran, Scotland, 10–12 March 2017

Scottish Vision Group Meeting, Isle of Arran, Scotland, 10–12 March 2017 Keynote 1: fMRI Recording From the Human LGN – Four Unexpected Findings Kathy T. Mullen, Dorita F. Chang and Robert F. Hess McGill University, Montreal, Canada Functional magnetic resonance imaging allows direct recording from the functioning human LGN, whereas previously our understanding of this primary thalamic nucleus was based on single cell recordings or lesion experiments in primates. FMRI studies, however, have thrown up some surprising results that initially appear to be at odds with data from the previous approaches. Here, I discuss some of these results from my lab, focusing on four different issues: (a) the responses to colour in the LGN as compared with these responses to the same stimuli in V1; (b) the effect of Amblyopia on human LGN and cortical responses and V1; (c) the responses to temporal frequency in the LGN and V1; and (d) the differential adaptation in the LGN for coloured and achromatic stimuli. Overall, I will argue that these results suggest that fMRI recordings are as much (or more) influenced by the descending cortico-thalamic feedback as by the ascending driver neuron responses. If this is correct, fMRI recording of the LGN can provide a very different perspective on its role in human visual processing. Keynote 2: Ocular Dominance Plasticity in Humans Robert F. Hess McGill University, Montreal, Canada Hubel and Wiesel, Nobel Laureates in 1981, were the first to discover that columns exist in the visual cortex representing left and right eye inputs (ocular dominance columns), and they also found that there is a critical period for visual development that occurs within the first year of life. More recently, however, it has become clear that some plasticity remains into adulthood. My recent work shows that this plasticity extends to ocular dominance in adults, which could potentially lead to direct therapeutic benefit. We have shown that short-term visual deprivation in adults improves sensitivity of the deprived eye and reduces sensitivity of the nondeprived eye, allowing the two eyes’ inputs to be rebalanced at the level of binocular integration. In this talk, I will review the evidence using a variety of techniques. Creative Commons CC-BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). i-Perception