Brain Dynamics
Event Details
- Type
- Monday Lecture Series
- Speaker(s)
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Charles Gilbert, M.D., Ph.D., Arthur and Janet Ross Professor and head, Laboratory of Neurobiology, The Rockefeller University
- Speaker bio(s)
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Vision is an active and dynamic process. The strategy our brain uses to parse scenes and recognize objects depends on experience. Our interpretation of visual scenes requires an interaction between internal representations of object properties acquired through experience and the immediate information coming from the retina. These internal representations enable the brain’s analysis of scenes to be subject to top-down influences of attention, expectation, perceptual tasks, perceptual learning, working memory and motor commands. At the level of brain circuitry this process involves an interaction between long range feedback and intrinsic cortical connections, allowing neurons to gate task relevant inputs, which enables them to assume different functional states according to the task being executed. The circuitry of the adult cortex therefore is under a continual long-term process of modification as we assimilate new information, and short-term dynamics as we analyze the constituents of visual scenes. These mechanisms are common to all regions of the brain, and when disrupted may account for visual and behavioral disorders.
Charles Gilbert received his MD and PhD degrees from Harvard Medical School, where he held an academic appointment until he joined The Rockefeller University in 1983. A member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he has received numerous awards, including the W. Alden Spencer Award from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Edward M. Scolnick Prize in Neuroscience from the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT. He has served as a member of several advisory committees for scientific philanthropies. Gilbert’s work focuses on the brain mechanisms of visual perception and learning. He studies the way in which the brain analyzes visual images, and how this analysis is shaped by experience and by higher-order cognitive influences. He investigates the mechanisms of information processing by the brain at the molecular, circuit, and perceptual levels and has revealed its dynamic nature, showing the influence of attention, expectation, perceptual task and perceptual learning on cortical function. He is currently exploring how these mechanisms may be disrupted in behavioral disorders such as autism.
- Open to
- Campus Only