Visual Cortical Plasticity and the Implications for Sight Restoration Technologies

项目摘要 虽然对老年性黄斑变性、青光眼和视网膜炎等疾病的治疗选择有限 目前存在着色剂，有各种正在开发的技术试图恢复一些视觉功能， 包括电子假体(皮质或视网膜)、光遗传学和基因疗法。这些技术不太可能 重建正常视力，但提供基本的视觉输入，可以改善患者的日常功能。 在目前的视力恢复技术状态下，电子和光遗传视力恢复技术引起了早期 开中心和离中心视网膜细胞同时激发，而不是以生物互补的方式(即，当开- 单元格激发，关闭-代表相同位置的单元格被抑制)。这造成了非常不自然的人口反应， 从视网膜传播到皮质。这项提案的核心问题是，患者是否有可能获得 成年期的皮质可塑性提高了他们在早期视觉中解码非自然细胞群体反应的能力 由电子假体或光基因技术引发的加工。 在这里，我们提出了一种独特的方法来理解皮质可塑性在成年期的作用，方法是检查正常情况下 有视力的人可以通过玩动作视频游戏来学习解码视觉扭曲的图像。我们将操纵 空间频率、方向和对比度信息以一种类似的方式双眼呈现给每只眼睛 对电子或光遗传假体构成的解码挑战。 这种扭曲的信息将在视频游戏训练范例中实时使用，然后我们将使用一个对象 辨别任务作为知觉学习的测验。我们将研究学习迁移(例如，使用单目视觉 刺激和切换滤光器原眼)，以揭示特定的学习机制(目标1)。接下来，使用函数式 磁共振成像，我们将检查参与者是否正在学习创建新的神经表示 在知觉学习期间的对象，或者在对象中是否存在与先前已有的对象表征的收敛- 选择性脑区(目标2)。最后，我们将测试短时间的双目眼镜是否能增强知觉学习。 剥夺(具体目标3)。 这项工作，研究了解码这些扭曲刺激的能力改进的潜在机制，将 为视力恢复技术的开发人员提供有关人类参与者学习 破译成年后的非自然神经群体反应。

Project Summary While only limited treatment options for diseases such as age related macular degeneration, glaucoma and retinitis pigmentosa currently exist, there are variety of technologies being developed that attempt to restore some visual functioning, including electronic prostheses (either cortical or retinal), optogenetics, and gene therapy. These technologies are not likely to recreate normal vision, but rather provide essential visual input that can improve everyday functioning in patients. In the current state of sight restoration technology, electronic and optogenetic sight recovery technologies cause early on- and off-center retinal cells to fire simultaneously, rather than in a biologically complementary fashion (i.e. when on- cells fire, off-cells representing the same location are suppressed). This creates deeply unnatural population responses that propagate from the retina to cortex. The central question of this proposal is whether patients have the potential to access cortical plasticity in adulthood that improves their ability to decode the unnatural cell population responses in early visual processing elicited by electronic prosthesis or optogenetic technologies. Here, we propose a unique way to understand the role of cortical plasticity in adulthood by examining whether normally sighted individuals can learn to decode visually distorted images by playing action video games. We will manipulate the spatial frequency, orientation and contrast information presented dichoptically to each eye in a way that provides a similar decoding challenge to that posed by electronic or optogenetic prostheses. This distorted information will be used in real time in a video game training paradigm, and we will then use an object discrimination task as a test of perceptual learning. We will examine transfer of learning (for example, using monocular stimuli, and switching filter eye of origin) to uncover specific mechanisms of learning (Aim 1). Next, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we will examine whether participants are learning to create novel neural representations of objects during perceptual learning or whether there is a convergence with previous existing object representations in object- selective brain areas (Aim 2). Finally, we will test whether perceptual learning is enhanced by short periods of binocular deprivation (Specific Aim 3). This work, examining the mechanisms underlying improvements in the ability to decode these distorted stimuli, will provide developers of sight recovery technologies with empirical data about the potential of human participants to learn to decode unnatural neural population responses in adulthood.