Sensory Neuroscience

Sensory Neuroscience

• Professor John W. Morley (School of Medicine, Group Leader)

Keywords: bionic eye, neural coding, vision, touch, tinnitus, neural plasticity, dystrophin, Duchenne muscular dystrophy
Collaborators (internal): Dr C. Parsons, Prof V. Macefield, Prof W. S. Price, Dr D. Mahns
Collaborators (external): Prof N. Lovell (UNSW), A/Prof G. Suaning (UNSW), Dr S. Head (UNSW), Dr R. Vickery (UNSW), Prof M. Calford (Newcastle), Dr S. Solomon (Sydney), Prof R. LaMotte (Yale, USA)

Research: My research interests are in the general area of sensory neuroscience, and in particular I am involved in investigation of the neural coding in sensory systems (vision touch and audition), and in the cerebellum. Most recently my research has focused on:1) plasticity in the cerebral cortex following disruption of sensory input, 2) the development of visual prostheses, and 3) the role of the protein dystrophin in the central nervous system. Suppression of visual cortical evoked responses following deprivation of pattern vision in adult mice. The effect of visual loss on the adult cortex can have significant impact on the success of a visual implant. Recent research has shown that the adult cortex retains substantial plasticity following a disruption to its afferent input. The result of these changes may hamper the development of a visual prosthesis if visual sensation cannot be effectively restored by stimulation of the surviving elements of the visual pathway. In order to evaluate further the visual performance of the mammalian adult brain following visual loss, especially the dominant form of blindness in humans, namely loss of pattern vision, we examined the cortical evoked potential of adult mice following 7, 30 and 120 days of visual deprivation. We found that the adult brain exhibited significant experience-dependent modifications following visual loss, and the impact depended on the duration of deprivation. Such reduction in visual responsiveness, especially with electrical activation, will need to be taken into account in the development of a visual implant.

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