We are pleased to announced that the lab has received initial funding from the Vision Health Research Network of the FRQ-S. This will fund a project investigating “Adaptation of visual processing to noisy signals in normal vision and Visual Snow Syndrome”.

To perceive the world through sight, the visual system must perform sophisticated processing on the input from the eyes. The visual input is noisy, and so the information regarding what is being seen must be inferred. Recent findings suggest that the brain may adapt its processing to the noise in the input. This can be seen in studies of healthy vision, in studies of changes with age, and in disease. This raises the question of whether these proposed adaptations are responsible for some of the symptoms of those diseases. In this project, I set out to establish whether these adaptations occur, with a specific focus on Visual Snow Syndrome. This condition has only recently gained interest as an area of study. Its sufferers experience a “TV static” noise across their visual field. My hypothesis is that in healthy vision there is a homeostatic balance controlling the effects of visual noise. In Visual Snow Syndrome, I would therefore hypothesise that this balance has been disturbed. For example, the palinopsia experienced by some patients may be due to abnormal temporal integration. In my project, I will develop behavioural methods to measure the strength of the visual noise affecting these individuals. I will also develop methods to measure the adaptive responses that this noise may have elicited. These experiments will use online psychophysical testing to reach a large cohort. Should this study find the hypothesised imbalance to be responsible, then that would raise the possibility of “re-balancing” the system to cure the condition.