microscope icon

The Schiller Lab at MIT

Home

People

Research

Purpose  
Methods  

Brain regions studied

 

Lines of research

 

Publications

Contact Us

Class

Glossary

BCS home page

MIT home page

Vision and the Visual System

Research

Purpose of the research:

To determine how visual perception is processed by the brain and how visually guided eye movements are generated.

Methods:

The methods used in the Schiller lab are:
  1. Physiological studies in non-human primates that utilize single-cell recordings, microstimulation, pharmacological manipulation, tissue inactivation and ablation.
  2. Behavioral studies in normal human subjects, in patients with brain infarcts, and in non-human primates that examine visual and oculomotor capacities.

Brain regions studied:

During the past 35 years, numerous brain areas of several species have been studied in the Schiller Lab that include the retina, the lateral geniculate nucleus, the superior colliculus, the parabigeminal nucleus, the pre-tectum, areas V1, V2, V3, V4, the middle temporal area, the lateral intraparietal area, inferotemporal cortex, the frontal eye fields and the medial eye fields. The results have been reported in more than 150 publications and have involved more than 40 investigators.

Lines of research:

  1. The Neural Control of Vision:

    Research on the visual system examines its operational characteristics with special emphasis on objects recognition, depth perception, and the characterization of parallel information processing channels.

  2. The Neural Control of Visually Guided Eye Movements:

    Research on the oculomotor system examines its operational characteristics with special emphasis on determining what the roles are of various cortical areas in the generation of visually guided eye movements.

  3. Visual Prosthesis: