Early cross-modal interactions and adult human visual cortical plasticity revealed by binocular rivalry / / Claudia Lunghi.

• Superior document: Premio Tesi di dottorato
• VerfasserIn: Lunghi, Claudia,
• Place / Publishing House: Firenze : : Firenze University Press,, [2014]; ©2014
• Year of Publication: 2014
• Language: English
• Series: Premio Tesi di dottorato.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (166 pages).

In this research binocular rivalry is used as a tool to investigate different aspects of visual and multisensory perception. Several experiments presented here demonstrated that touch specifically interacts with vision during binocular rivalry and that the interaction likely occurs at early stages of visual processing, probably V1 or V2. Another line of research also presented here demonstrated that human adult visual cortex retains an unexpected high degree of experience-dependent plasticity by showing that a brief period of monocular deprivation produced important perceptual consequences on the dynamics of binocular rivalry, reflecting a homeostatic plasticity. In summary, this work shows that binocular rivalry is a powerful tool to investigate different aspects of visual perception and can be used to reveal unexpected properties of early visual cortex.

Table of Contents

Abstract -- Chapter 1 General Introduction -- 1.1. What is Binocular Rivalry? -- 1.2. What rivals during binocular rivalry? Eye versus Stimulus Rivalry -- 1.3. Binocular Rivalry dynamics -- 1.3.1. Phase duration distribution -- 1.3.2. Stimulus strength and the dynamics of binocular rivalry -- 1.3.3 Onset Rivalry -- 1.4. Binocular Rivalry Suppression -- 1.4.1 Visual adaptation and priming to suppressed patterns -- 1.4.2. Where does suppression take place in the visual brain? -- 1.5. Binocular Rivalry and Attention -- 1.5.1. Voluntary/Endogenous attention and binocular rivalry -- 1.5.2. Involuntary/Exogenous attention and binocular rivalry -- 1.5.3. Is attention necessary for binocular rivalry? -- Chapter 2 Cross-modal interactions during binocular rivalry -- 2.1. Introduction. Multisensory Processing -- 2.1.1. Multisensory processing in the superior colliculus (SC) -- 2.1.2. Multisensory Integration in temporal and parietal cortical areas -- 2.1.3. Cross-modal interactions in (previously thought) unisensory areas -- 2.1.4. Maximum Likelihood Estimation model of multisensory integration -- 2.1.5. Cross-modal interactions and bistable perception -- 2.2. Touch interacts with binocular rivalry at early stages of visual processing -- 2.2.1. Touch specifically interferes with the dynamics of binocular rivalry -- 2.2.2. The interaction between vision and touch during binocular rivalry is strictly tuned for orientation -- 2.2.3. Spatial proximity is crucial, active exploration is not -- 2.2.4. Summary and Conclusions -- Chapter 3 Plasticity of adult human visual cortex revealed by binocular rivalry -- 3.1. Introduction -- 3.1.1. Juvenile plasticity of the visual system: the critical period -- 3.1.2. Visual cortical plasticity in the adult -- 3.2. Brief periods of monocular deprivation disrupt ocular balance in human adult visual cortex -- 3.2.1. Results and Discussion -- 3.3. Long-term effects of monocular deprivation revealed with binocular rivalry gratings modulated in luminance and in color -- 3.3.1. Materials and Methods -- 3.3.2. Results -- 3.3.3. Discussion -- 3.3.4. Conclusions -- 3.4. Summary and Conclusions -- Chapter 4 Binocular Rivalry as a tool to monitor visual system plasticity during occlusion therapy in amblyopic children -- 4.1. Introduction -- 4.1.1. Amblyopia -- 4.1.2. Occlusion Therapy -- 4.2. Binocular Rivalry during occlusion therapy -- 4.2.1. Materials and Methods -- 4.2.2. Preliminary results -- 4.2.3. Discussion -- Chapter 5 General Conclusions -- References.