THE INSIGHT OF BLINDSIGHT: brain shortcuts for (e)motion processing

Much of what we know about brain circuitry for human vision comes from neuroimaging studies and investigations on people with brain damage. A remarkable example are the studies in blindsight patients, who despite being blind after injury to their primary visual cortex (V1), display remarkable visual abilities. Indeed, blindsight patients can navigate through obstacles, detect motion, and correctly identify emotion in unseen faces. A possible explanation for this apparent paradox is that visual information is conveyed from subcortical structures to other cortical regions, bypassing V1. In this talk, I will present converging evidence from a diverse range of neuroimaging techniques and large data sets, which show this is the case for behavioural salient stimuli charged with motion and emotion information. I propose that the brain circuitry underpinning such residual vision, albeit without awareness, relies on brain shortcuts. These shortcuts may be a means for expediency of information processing and a useful alternative for the preservation and rehabilitation of critical visual functions after brain insult.

Bio: 

Professor Marta Garrido leads the Cognitive Neuroscience and Computational Psychiatry Laboratory and is the Director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Hub at the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences. Marta is also a Research Program Lead at the Graeme Clark Institute of Biomedical Engineering.

 Marta initially trained in Engineering Physics (Lisbon) and then received her PhD in Neuroscience from University College London. She then completed postdocs at University California Los Angeles and back at University College London. She moved to the Queensland Brain Institute on a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award where she later established her independent laboratory. In mid 2019 the lab moved to the University of Melbourne. Marta's work has been funded by several fellowships and ARC grants (Centre of Excellence, Discovery Project, Linkage Infrastructure Equipment and Facilities).