Section on Cognitive Neurophysiology and Imaging (SCNI)

David Leopold, Ph.D. Chief

The long-term goal of the Section on Cognitive Neurophysiology and Imaging (SCNI) 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

Section 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