Purpose and Mechanisms of Behavioural Modulation in Retina and Superior Colliculus

Our state of mind largely determines our cognitive performance, which is significantly compromised in mental disorders like attention deficit disorder. Although we know that mental states affect neural activity in many brain regions, an open question is how effects on sensory processing lead to drops in cognitive performance. For example, does fatigue limit our reading ability because our sense of sight suffers? My goal is to determine how mental states change visual signals as early as in the eye and how this affects our behaviour. I will investigate how neurons with different roles in vision are affected by mental states, how the processing of behaviourally relevant visual input changes, and how brain messengers like serotonin control the effect of mental state on vision. I will use large-scale imaging and electrical recordings of hundreds of neurons; genetic and neural tracing tools to distinguish cell types; neural manipulation to elucidate functional roles.