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From retinal encoding to oculomotor adaptation: How the human visual system adapts to degraded sensory information| title | From retinal encoding to oculomotor adaptation: How the human visual system adapts to degraded sensory information |
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| start_date | 2025/12/15 |
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| schedule | 11h-12h |
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| online | no |
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| location_info | salle des Voûtes |
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| summary | The human visual system encounters situations where optical quality, retinal sampling, luminance, or the available visual field is degraded. Yet it maintains remarkably stable perception by adapting to the changes in statistical structure that arise when sensory fidelity is reduced. In this talk, I will discuss how the visual system adjusts to degraded sensory information across multiple levels of processing, from retinal encoding to cortical computation and oculomotor behavior.
First, I will show that spatial integration across the visual field follows a constant-retinal ganglion cell (RGC) sampling principle. This principle provides a unified account of classic visual-field asymmetries and explains why aging and glaucoma, both marked by RGC loss, lead to enlarged spatial integration zones. Second, I will show how advanced retinal imaging combined with deep learning identifies the retinal layers that support contrast sensitivity and visual acuity, revealing that ganglion cell layers predict contrast sensitivity, whereas visual acuity depends most on the photoreceptor layer. This approach also provides a useful tool for estimating the retinal limit of human visual function. Third, I will discuss fMRI evidence demonstrating compensatory cortical adaptations under mesopic luminance, where spatial integration indicated by population receptive fields becomes smaller and surround suppression remains robust to preserve signal fidelity, in contrast to predictions based on feedforward retinal input. Finally, I will show how the oculomotor system reorganizes in response to simulated central vision loss, rapidly developing a peripheral pseudo fovea that can be strengthened with training and that produces measurable perceptual and cortical changes.
Together, these findings reveal coordinated retinal, cortical, and oculomotor adaptations that help preserve functional vision under degraded conditions. |
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| responsibles | Basques |
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Workflow history| from state (1) | to state | comment | date |
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| submitted | published | | 2025/12/09 09:18 UTC |
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