Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

This is a request for equipment that permits researchers to deliver naturalistic 3 dimensional (3D) visual stimuli and accurately monitor eye-movements while subjects undergo neuroimaging (fMRI). These tools will transform the functional resolution of fMRI projects by allowing for more realistic stimulus presentation, and more sensitive behavioural measures of the cognitive processes driving the neurophysiological effects observed using fMRI. Almost all prior neuroimaging studies of vision have involved flat, 2D images under the assumption that these representations are processed in the same way as naturalistic 3D objects. However, evidence from neuroimaging and neuropsychology now clearly shows that the neural mechanisms involved in processing 3D objects or contexts differ from those involved in processing the same representations in 2D. Studies in cognitive neuroscience need to combine more ecologically valid experimental scenarios with highly sensitive measures of performance. For example, eye tracking has fundamentally changed the current understanding of emotion-related brain regions like the amygdala, implicating a role for this region in orienting attention. Such findings are not possible without a combined approach involving neuroimaging and eye-tracking. The requested tools will allow researchers at the Centre for Brain and Mind at the University of Western Ontario to test hypotheses that are not testable using other methodologies, and measure processes during fMRI that cannot otherwise be measured. This equipment will transform the research conducted in the Centre to address core questions in the realm of visual object processing, mathematical computation, visually guided action, reading, spatial navigation, consciousness, and emotion.