Action in Vision

Vision is an active process intrinsically tied to body movements. How do vision and motor actions interact? The traditional view maintained that vision guides motor actions. Recent evidence challenged this view showing that neural activity in the early visual system (including thalamus dLGN and retina) is modulated by movements. Therefore motor actions can guide vision but the nature of this phenomenon is poorly understood. A major question regards the specificity of this effect. I expect the impact of movements on vision to be specific to the nature of the actions being performed. However, due to technological limitations, experimental data are limited to head-fixed preparations that only allow for one type of motor action - locomotion. To overcome these limitations I developed a system for quantifying motor actions in unrestrained animals. Combining experiments and computation I will unveil the neural encoding of visuomotor integration in the early visual system.