I would like to cordially invite you to the habilitation lecture which will take place on the 18th of June at 3pm in the Wojtczak lecture hall on the first floor. We will host dr Andrzej Foik (Ophthalmic Biology Group, International Centre for Translational Eye Research [ICTER], Institute of Physical Chemistry Polish Academy of Sciences). His habilitation is processed by the Scientific Council of the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Polish Academy of Sciences. He will give a lecture entitled: “Visual information processing in healthy, diseased, and treated animals”

Abstract:

Vision is not only the primary sense of humans but also a great model to investigate broad aspects of neuroscientific research, such as information coding and neuronal plasticity. Information is detected by the photoreceptor, processed by the inner retinal layer, and sent to the midbrain and thalamus via Retinal Ganglion cells, dividing processing into two main visual pathways. Any defects in those pathways can be detected in further parts of the visual system. Therefore, there is extreme pressure to find a pallet of treatments for various retinal diseases. Unfortunately, any cellular degeneration causes changes in neuronal networks and connectivity. Although there are visible anatomical changes, we don’t know how physiology and information processing change along with connectivity. We have tested visually evoked responses in several experiments after the restoration or treatment of visual impairments. The critical question was whether it could bring back complex processing without reaction to light. We have recorded single-neuron responses in the visual cortex and the Superior colliculus to investigate the restoration of the visual function. Responses were recorded in animals treated with the retinal transplant, pharmacologically and with a new gene-editing technique based on CRISPR-Cas9 and adenine base editing. Our results indicate that restoring specific parameter tuning of the single cells is possible. However, with a cost of the receptive field parameters, it most likely translates into worse acuity and contrast sensitivity.