Professor Tessa Dekker, UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, London
In my lab, we study how visual experience shapes the developing brain, and how it adapts when that experience is missing or suddenly restored through pioneering sight-rescue gene therapies. The work I will present reveals how visual neural processes develop and can reorganise and recover, and offers insight into the limits and potential for human brain plasticity and the cascading impact of visual experience on our perceptual and cognitive function.
Open to all Social Sciences staff and students.
Location
Round the Green Table in Psychology, 6th Floor – Copland Building, Cavendish Campus
About the speaker
Professor Tessa Dekker
Tessa studies how development of visual system contributes to adaptive perception and action, with a strong focus on neural mechanisms.
Her work involves:
- behavioural psychophysics and eye-tracking to study developmental change
- neuroimaging methods to understand the neural processes that support this change
- fitting these data with formal models of neurocognitive processing to test quantitative hypotheses about underlying processes
Her previous work on normal visuomotor development has allowed her to perfect methods and procedures for use with children aged 5-15 years. She has adapted these methods for children with developmental disorders to study atypical development and plasticity at the brain level, and help develop new assessment and treatment evaluation methods.
