Grant: Operating Grant

Understanding how humans perceive and act upon complex natural environments is one of the most pressing challenges in neuroscience, with applications that have the potential to revolutionize not only our understanding of the brain, but also neuro-rehabilitation, machine vision, artificial intelligence, robotics, and the development of media content. However, the study of the neural basis of active vision, how visual stimuli gives rise to eye movements, and how these eye movements influence vision under diverse task conditions, has largely been restricted to simple laboratory stimuli presented to subjects performing stereotypical tasks. Our goal in the proposed research is to investigate the neural basis of active vision by examining the features that give rise to natural vision during unconstrained viewing of natural dynamic stimuli. We will compare and contrast recordings from single neurons in crucial regions of the cerebral cortex and brainstem to determine how active vision is both coordinated and controlled.