DEVELOPMENT OF VISUAL EFFICIENCY

这项研究的目的是揭示神经机制 限制了灵长类动物视觉能力的发展 最近 视觉心理物理学和理论的进步使得 用同样的术语来阐述关于视觉发展的问题， 分析成人的视力，我们正在进行实验， 神经生物学的发展在这些功能方面。 的 该项目的实验取决于视觉测量。 效率，对比度在视觉中编码的保真度 系统 对比度阈值测量行为在存在或 在幼年猕猴中评估掩蔽噪声的缺乏作为函数 年龄。 我们证实，随着动物的成熟，视觉效率 提高对比敏感度。 试图建立 我们记录了外侧膝状体神经元的潜在机制， 核（LGN）和初级视皮层（V1）。 我们发现 灵敏度和分辨率的提高程度 LGN中的神经元数量不足以解释 行为测量的变化。 我们在V1中的录音还相当 初步的，但我们希望找到一个更大程度的成熟， V1比我们发现在LGN的水平。 除了这些 研究，我们已经开始衡量敏感性的发展， 灵长类动物的视觉运动 我们计划研究视觉的成熟 大脑皮层中的运动处理区域， 这是婴儿视觉运动处理的基础

The goal of this research is to uncover the neuronal mechanisms that limit the development of visual performance in primates. Recent advances in visual psychophysics and theory have made it possible to formulate questions about visual development in the same terms used to analyze adult vision, and we are conducting experiments to explore the neurobiology of development in these functional terms. The experiments in this project hinge on the measurement of visual efficiency, the fidelity with which contrast is encoded in the visual system. Contrast thresholds measured behaviorally in the presence or absence of masking noise are assessed in infant macaques as a function of age. We confirmed that, as the animals mature, visual efficiency improves with contrast sensitivity. To try to establish the underlying mechanisms we recorded from neurons in lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) and primary visual cortex (V1) in newborns. We found that the degree of improvement in sensitivity and resolution of neurons in LGN was not substantial enough to account for the behaviorally measured changes. Our recordings in V1 are as yet quite preliminary, but we expect to find a greater degree of maturation in V1 than we found at the level of the LGN. In addition to these studies, we have begun to measure the development of sensitivity to visual motion in primates. We plan to study the maturation of visual motion processing areas in the cortex to understand the maturational processes that underlie visual motion processing in infants.