This seminar will also stream via Zoom. For the link, please email: jmarcus@upenn.edu

Dora Hermes
Mayo Clinic

Electrical stimulation driven neural signal propagation in human visual pathways

Perception reflects a combination of sensory feedforward drive from the periphery and feedback inputs from central brain regions. Many studies in visual neuroscience investigate feedforward responses to external inputs, modeling increasingly accurate representations of visual inputs. While it is possible to gain some insight into feedback using (in)activation methods in animal models and manipulation of task instructions in humans, electrical stimulation methods during clinical human intracranial EEG recordings provide a direct causal inference regarding the role of feedback in the visual system. Single pulse electrical stimulation reveals several principles of how electrical stimulation of feedback pathways can be used to affect the visual system. This understanding can be used to help delineate the effects of brain stimulation in epilepsies affecting the visual pathways.