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How do neurotransmitters help decide what we see?| old_uid | 12753 |
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| title | How do neurotransmitters help decide what we see? |
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| start_date | 2013/09/09 |
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| schedule | 11h |
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| online | no |
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| summary | In neuroscience, one pervading mystery is how the brain is able to generate an “internal” perceptual experience from the available “external” sensory information. Ambiguous stimuli, like binocular rivalry and the Necker cube, offer a unique means to investigate this process experimentally because observers generally experience changes between multiple perceptual states without corresponding changes in the stimulus. I will present results obtained using a variety of methods including pharmacology (the serotonergic hallucinogens psilocybin), pupillometry and basic psychophysics. The first half of the talk will focus on perceptual rivalry in the visual, auditory and tactile domains. The second half of the talk will move on to some recent studies using pupil dilation to investigate the role of the noradrenergic systems in simple motor and cognitive decision events. Finally I will briefly present very recent work using these characteristic pupil responses to successfully communicate with non-responsive patients with Locked in Syndrome and one individual in a minimally conscious state. Together this series of results suggest that the cycle of perceptual switching characteristic of rivalry may reflect a generalized mechanism that is common to perception, cognition and action that allows the brain to decide between multiple valid alternatives, without becoming stuck on a non-optimal decision. Furthermore, it may be possible to gain access into another person’s decisions by observing the dilation of their pupil. |
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| responsibles | Rämä, Izard |
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