The principal objective of this study is to understand the functional pathways underlying the visual processing of motion in the human brain. The subjects for the study will be a group of normal adults and stroke patients with focal lesions in the occipital, temporal or parietal lobes, whose deficits will be also characterized on neurological, neuropsychological, neuro-ophthalmological and neuroanatomical dimensions. Recent physiological and computational advances in the understanding of primate motion analysis provide the framework for the experimental studies proposed in this project. Two classes of problems in visual motion processing will be addressed: (1) detection and measurement; and (2) the use of motion measurements for visual tasks such as the separation of figure from the background or for the derivation of three dimensional structure, for example. The second objective of the study is to learn whether deficits of motion and form processing tend to be associated with functionally and structurally distinct systems in the brain. The third objective is to identify the specific motion deficits that may be correlated with visual-spatial impairments and with poor performance on neuropsychological tasks designed for assessing right hemisphere functions. This might provide the basis for the remediation programs of visuo-spatial deficits. We are specifically interested in the correlations of visual motion deficits and stereopsis, contrast sensitivity, acuity and form.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Eye Institute (NEI)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01EY007861-04
Application #
3264949
Study Section
Visual Sciences B Study Section (VISB)
Project Start
1989-08-01
Project End
1994-07-31
Budget Start
1992-08-01
Budget End
1993-07-31
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
1992
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Boston University
Department
Type
Schools of Engineering
DUNS #
604483045
City
Boston
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02118
Beardsley, Scott A; Vaina, Lucia M (2008) An effect of relative motion on trajectory discrimination. Vision Res 48:1040-52
Cowey, Alan; Campana, Gianluca; Walsh, Vincent et al. (2006) The role of human extra-striate visual areas V5/MT and V2/V3 in the perception of the direction of global motion: a transcranial magnetic stimulation study. Exp Brain Res 171:558-62
Calabro, Finnegan J; Vaina, Lucia M (2006) Stereo motion transparency processing implements an ecological smoothness constraint. Perception 35:1219-32
Beardsley, Scott A; Vaina, Lucia M (2006) Global motion mechanisms compensate local motion deficits in a patient with a bilateral occipital lobe lesion. Exp Brain Res 173:724-32
Vaina, Lucia M; Cowey, Alan; Jakab, Marianna et al. (2005) Deficits of motion integration and segregation in patients with unilateral extrastriate lesions. Brain 128:2134-45
Beardsley, Scott A; Vaina, Lucia M (2005) How can a patient blind to radial motion discriminate shifts in the center-of-motion? J Comput Neurosci 18:55-66
Vaina, Lucia M; Soloviev, Sergei (2004) First-order and second-order motion: neurological evidence for neuroanatomically distinct systems. Prog Brain Res 144:197-212
Vaina, Lucia M; Gross, Charles G (2004) Perceptual deficits in patients with impaired recognition of biological motion after temporal lobe lesions. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 101:16947-51
Royden, Constance S; Vaina, Lucia M (2004) Is precise discrimination of low level motion needed for heading discrimination? Neuroreport 15:1013-7
Beardsley, Scott A; Ward, Robert L; Vaina, Lucia M (2003) A neural network model of spiral-planar motion tuning in MSTd. Vision Res 43:577-95

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