Research Summary
My research focuses primarily on visual and cross-sensory perceptual and attentional processing and the effects of cortical plasticity on these functions. I study these mechanism in healthy participants and participants with unusual visual pathway routing (albinism). In my experiments I primarily use fMRI and psychophysical methods to gain a fuller picture of the processes studied. Current projects include an fMRI study of cortical plasticity of top-down signals in V1 in albinism and a TMS study of the differential roles of the IPS and FEF in processing distractor salience. In future I would like to apply my skills and knowledge to visual and crossmodal perception and attention research, using albinism as a tool to probe the developmental plasticity of the normal sensory and attention systems.
I also have an interest in understanding how visual impairment affects quality of life (QOL) and in informaing health professionals and researchers about the imact of the language they use when communicating with and about people with visual impairments.
I also have an interest in understanding how visual impairment affects quality of life (QOL) and in informaing health professionals and researchers about the imact of the language they use when communicating with and about people with visual impairments.
Research Skills
fMRI Experimental design optimisation for univariate analysis (randomisation with de Bruijn cycles, optimised
ISI jittering, design efficiency estimation)
Data quality assessment, processing and analysis with SPM, FSL, AFNI, Princeton MVPA Toolbox,
PyMVPA, Nipype, NeuroDebian
Experience of topographic mapping of primary visual areas and pIPS using AFNI/Freesurfer/Suma
Basic experience of MVPA using the Princeton MVPA Toolbox and PyMVPA
Psychophysics
TMS
Eye tracking In- and outside of the MRI scanner
EEG/EOG/VEP Acquisition and basic analysis with Brain Products
Programming Proficient in MATLAB/Octave including the Psychophysics Toolbox
Proficient in Presentation
Basic programming in UNIX and C
Advanced Statistics Bayesian statistics, multivariate statistics, time series analysis, medical statistics
Other software SPSS, Mathematica
ISI jittering, design efficiency estimation)
Data quality assessment, processing and analysis with SPM, FSL, AFNI, Princeton MVPA Toolbox,
PyMVPA, Nipype, NeuroDebian
Experience of topographic mapping of primary visual areas and pIPS using AFNI/Freesurfer/Suma
Basic experience of MVPA using the Princeton MVPA Toolbox and PyMVPA
Psychophysics
TMS
Eye tracking In- and outside of the MRI scanner
EEG/EOG/VEP Acquisition and basic analysis with Brain Products
Programming Proficient in MATLAB/Octave including the Psychophysics Toolbox
Proficient in Presentation
Basic programming in UNIX and C
Advanced Statistics Bayesian statistics, multivariate statistics, time series analysis, medical statistics
Other software SPSS, Mathematica