Pick one title.
Essays should be 2000-2500 words in length and in no case should exceed 3500 words. They should be word-processed. Clear diagrams are encouraged. Note that the topic chosen must be different from the topic chosen for the seminar.
The date for handing in the essay can be found in the course timetable.
Please note at the top of your essay the question and the lecturer from whose list it was taken.
Pick one of the past examination questions on retinal or cortical anatomy. (Follow link on Web site to past papers.)
How does the adult organisation of the visual system reflect the developmental mechanisms that sculpted it?
How are the center-surround receptive fields of the retina formed and what are their significance?
How are distinct ON and OFF pathways generated and maintained in the retina?
How is the electroretinogram generated and recorded?
What do retinal amacrine cells do?
Why are there different classes of ganglion cell in the retina?
What roles do opsins play in the initiation, and determination of the duration, of the light responses in rods and cones?
Give an example or examples of how psychophysical phenomena can be related to the underlying physiology and anatomy.
Discuss the commoner colour vision deficiencies, their causes, and their relationships to normal colour vision.
Visual illusions can be fun, but they also provide us with insights about how our visual system function. Discuss this statement giving several examples.
What is light adaptation?
Contrast the processing and perception of luminance and chromatic signals.
How similar in structure and function is human and monkey visual cortex?
References
Dougherty RF, et al., Visual field representations and locations of visual areas V1/2/3 in human visual cortex. J Vis, 2003 3: 586-598.
Larsson J, Heeger DJ. 2006 Two retinotopic visual areas in human lateral occipital cortex. J Neurosci 26: 13128-13142.
Rottschy C et al. 2007. Ventral visual cortex in humans: cytoarchitectonic mapping of two extrastriate areas. Hum Brain Mapp 28: 1045-1059.
Orban GA, et al. 2006. Mapping the parietal cortex of human and non-human primates. Neuropsychologia 44: 2647-2667.
How do forward and feedback connections in the visual cortex differ in structure and function?
What is the best (most insightful or imaginative or well-designed) fMRI study of visual function to date? Pick one and justify your choice.
Describe the contribution of cortical areas V1, V2, V4 and IT to visual object recognition.
What have brain imaging experiments told us about neural mechanisms of motion processing?
Discuss the psychophysical tests done to assess the motion vision of "motion blind" patients.