Ph.D., Brown University
Professor
Department of Neuroscience
554 Sidney Frank Hall of Life Sciences
Tel: (401) 863-1159
Email: Michael_Paradiso@Brown.edu
Go to lab web page

What is the relationship between neural activity in the brain and the perceptual world we experience? In my lab we seek to answer this question by exploring the machinery underlying visual perception. Vision seems effortless, but one indication of its complexity is that it involves a large fraction of the entire human brain. Somehow from the light reflected off objects into our eye, we can read the small type on a dime, distinguish between paintings of Cézanne and Monet, and recognize the subtlest expressions on a friend's face. Rather than being a passive process akin to photography, vision involves an array of adaptive interacting computations through which our perceptual world is synthesized. If we can expose these computations we will be closer to understanding the relationship between mind and brain. Our lab studies the visual system primarily by making electrophysiological recordings from neurons in animals trained to perform perceptual tasks. This allows us to answer questions about how visual information is represented in the activity of neurons, where in the system critical perceptual computations are performed, and how neural activity is related to perceptual decisions. We also study visual processing in humans with psychophysical experiments and fMRI. Research topics currently under investigation include the neural basis of lightness and color perception, cortical mechanisms of selective visual attention, and temporal coding.

MacEvoy SP, Hanks TD, Paradiso MA (2008, in press) Macaque V1 activity during natural vision: effects of natural scenes and saccades.  Journal of Neurophysiology.

Huang X, Paradiso MA (2008, in press) Rebounding V1 activity and a new visual aftereffect.  Journal of Vision.

Rittenhouse CD, Siegler BA, Voelker CA, Shouval HZ, Paradiso MA, Bear MF (2006) Stimulus for rapid ccular dominance plasticity in visual cortex.  Journal of Neurophysiology 95: 2947-2950.

Paradiso MA, Blau S, Huang X, MacEvoy SP, Rossi AF, Shalev G (2006) Lightness, filling-in, and the fundamental role of context in visual perception.  Progress in Brain Research 155: 109-123.

Huang X, Paradiso MA (2005) Background changes delay information represented in macaque V1 neurons. Journal of Neurophysiology 94: 4314 - 4330.

Huang X, Blau S, Paradiso MA (2005) Background changes delay the perceptual availability of form information.  Journal of Neurophysiology 94: 4331 - 4343.

Paradiso MA, MacEvoy SP, Huang X, Blau S (2005) The importance of modulatory input for V1 activity and perception.  Progress in Brain Research 149: 257-266.

Rossi AF, Paradiso MA (2003) Surface completion: Psychophysical and Neurophysiological Studies of Brightness Interpolation In: ìFilling-in: From perceptual completion to skill learningî, eds: Pessoa L. and De Weerd P., Oxford University Press.

Huang X, Macevoy SP, Paradiso MA (2002) Brightness perception and brightness illusions in the macaque monkey.  Journal of Neuroscience 22: 9618-9625.

Paradiso MA (2002) Neuronal and perceptual correspondence in primary visual cortex. Current Opinion in Neurobiology 12: 155-161.

MacEvoy SP, Paradiso MA (2001) Lightness constancy in primary visual cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 98: 8827-8831.

Bear MF, Connors B, Paradiso MA (2001) Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain (Second Edition). Williams and Wilkins, New York, NY.

Paradiso MA (2000) Visual Neuroscience: Illuminating the dark corners. Current Biology 10: R15-18.

Rossi AF and Paradiso MA (1999) Neural correlates of brightness in the responses of neurons in the retina, LGN, and primary visual cortex. Journal of Neuroscience 19: 6145-6156.