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David Leopold, Ph.D.
Chief, Unit on Cognitive Neurophysiology and Imaging
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The long-term goal of the Unit on Cognitive Neurophysiology
and Imaging (UCNI) is to understand the large-scale organization of
visuoperceptual processing in the brain. Our visual impression of the
world arises as the brain registers and interprets images falling on
the retinae. It is well known that neurons in different cortical areas
respond selectively to image features, and it is thought that this
analysis proceeds in a hierarchical fashion. Yet, these insights do
leave open the question of where and how visual perception emerges from
neural responses. Our perceptual experience has simultaneous access to
simple features (e.g. color and brightness), intermediate ones (e.g.
shape and geometric arrangement), and semantic qualities (e.g. identity
and meaning), suggesting that its neural origins are complex. To study
this challenging topic, we combine approaches to both temporarily
perturb and simultaneously measure brain activity during different
perceptual states.
Contact Information
Dr. David Leopold,
Chief, Unit on Cognitive Neurophysiology and Imaging
Laboratory of Neuropsychology
National Institute of Mental Health
Building 49, Room B2J-45, MSC-4400
49 Convent Dr., Bethesda, MD 20892 USA
TEL: (301) 594-0582
FAX: (301) 480-1644
EMAIL: leopoldd@mail.nih.gov
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