Gerick Lee

Gerick Lee is a graduate student in the Visual Neuroscience Laboratory at NYU. He is interested in how visual cortex supports the perception of visual forms and how development affects this relationship. Gerick entered science at the University of Washington, where he studied the effect of sleep deprivation on memory in Reykjavik, Iceland, and with brain computer interfaces in macaques in Seattle. Following this, he obtained a master’s in Neural systems and computation from the University and ETH Zurich, where he first became interested in development, studying how sleep-related neural signals change across childhood. After a six-month fellowship in Melbourne, Australia, studying the effects of anesthesia on the encoding of auditory information, he moved to New York in 2015. At NYU, Gerick studies development through the use of behavioral and physiological methods in macaques. He also studies how amblyopia, a disorder caused by atypical visual development, affects form processing in humans.

Principal Investigator: Tony Movshon

Fellow: Ezra Sutter

Project
Development of contour selectivity in area V4

The ventral stream of visual cortex is associated with the processing of visual forms. Neurons in ventral area V4 are known to be tuned for curvature; their firing rates are modulated by the presence or absence of particular contour features within visual stimuli. It is unknown how or whether this tuning changes during early life. To better understand the origin of shape tuning in V4, this project will analyze neural recordings made from macaques during the first year of life in response to shape stimuli shapes varying parametrically in orientation and curvature. The researchers will measure the effects of age on the encoding of stimulus features, the nature of stimulus encoding over time, and the temporal dynamics of the evoked response. Given the importance of area V4 to form processing as a whole, a characterization of how shape tuning changes during early life will provide insight into the origin of form vision.