How Our Brain Keeps Vision Stable When Our Eyes Move
Physiological, Computational, and Psychological Approaches to Understanding Spatial Vision
This research explores how our brains keep the world from looking blurry or jumpy when our eyes quickly shift focus, especially for people whose brains have trouble with this.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Columbia University Health Sciences NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (New York, United States) |
| Project ID | NIH-11116842 on NIH RePORTER |
What this research studies
Every time your eyes make a quick movement, called a saccade, the image on the back of your eye changes dramatically, yet you perceive the world as stable. This project aims to understand how the brain achieves this 'trans-saccadic visual stability,' a process that can be disrupted in patients with certain brain injuries. We want to learn more about how specific brain cells in areas like the parietal cortex and frontal eye fields adjust their activity to predict and compare visual information across eye movements. By studying these brain mechanisms, we hope to uncover why vision remains stable for most people and why it becomes unstable for others.
Who could benefit from this research
Good fit: This foundational research is most relevant to patients with conditions affecting the parietal cortex or other brain areas involved in visual stability.
Not a fit: Patients without conditions affecting visual stability or brain function related to eye movements may not directly benefit from this specific research.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could lead to a deeper understanding of visual processing and potentially inform future treatments or therapies for patients experiencing unstable vision due to brain conditions.
How similar studies have performed: Previous discoveries about how brain cells shift their 'receptive fields' have brought renewed attention to this area, and this project builds on those findings to answer remaining questions.
Where this research is happening
New York, United States
- Columbia University Health Sciences — New York, United States (Active)
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Qian, Ning — Columbia University Health Sciences
- Study coordinator: Qian, Ning
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page below.