Cortical plasticity and eye diseases: the influence of experience on spatial vision

Abstract

In this talk, I will present recent results from my lab showing how visual experience can modify the way we encode and perceive our surrounding space. I will first describe a novel model based on a spiking neural network which uses a biologically inspired plasticity rule (spike-timing dependent plasticity or ‘STDP’) to simulate the learning of binocular properties from natural stereoscopic images (Chauhan et al., 2018). I will then present behavioral data collected in patients with macular degeneration (MD). These data suggest that peripheral vision is modified after the apparition of the scotoma in this population (Maniglia et al., 2018). Finally, I will show that perceptual learning can be an interesting tool to improve visual abilities in MD patients. References: - Chauhan, T., Masquelier, T., Montlibert, A., & Cottereau, B. R. (2018). Emergence of binocular disparity selectivity through Hebbian learning. Journal of Neuroscience, 38(44), 9563-9578. - Maniglia, M., Soler, V., Cottereau, B., & Trotter, Y. (2018). Spontaneous and training-induced cortical plasticity in MD patients: Hints from lateral masking. Scientific reports, 8(1), 90.

http://tmbi.fr/benoit-cottereau/