Current Research Projects

• Brain Imaging of Human Errors

Most behaviour is plastic and can be modified by experience. Eye movements are particularly good examples of adaptive control in which behavioural responses can be modified by introducing unexpected behavioural outcomes (errors) experimentally. In this project we are attempting to image the brain using fMRI to better understand how errors are processed.

• Detecting and Measuring Eye Movement Abnormalities in Children with Brain Injury
  This project investigates methods of measuring quantitatively eye movements in young infants and older children who cannot follow instructions. This is important for understanding and quantifying the degree of neurological and visual impairment in the very young, and also in understanding normal visuo-motor development and early plasticity.

• Towards a Distal Model of Congenital Nystagmus

Why does congenital nystagmus develop? This type of nystagmus only emerges in early infancy and is an example of developmental plasticity with an early critical period. Could the plasticity be adaptive? We are developing a mathematical model that reproduces the unique waveforms of congenital nystagmus as an optimal behavioural strategy to maximise visual contrast when foveal vision fails to develop.

• Modeling Early Visuo-Motor Development as Adaptive Developmental Plasticity (ADP)

Post-natal development of the human visual system is highly plastic, but is usually considered to be maladaptive where normal vision fails to develop because of abnormal visual experience (eg. amblyopia). We are examining the development of eye movements as adaptive DP. We are first focussing on two abnormal oculomotor developments: saccade initiation failure (congenital ocular motor apraxia) and congenital nystagmus as extreme examples of ADP.