655-222 Visual Processing and Control

Optometry 655-221; physiology 536-201 or equivalent

This subject gives an overview of the physiological processes underlying vision and the control of eye movements. The series of lectures on visual processing will deal with the photoceptors and phototransduction, the organisation and function of the retina, the lateral geniculate nucleus, the superior colliculus and the visual cortex. The second series of lectures on ocular control will deal with muscular mechanisms of the eye including the mechanics of translatory, saccadic and slow pursuit eye movements, Listing's Law, neural control of eye movements and binocular eye movements, Hering's Law, accommodation and the accommodative-convergence synkinesis and pupillary reactions.

A 3-hour written examination at the end of the semester (85%). Practical work (15%).

• J G Nicholls, A R Martin and B G Wallace, From Neuron to Brain. 3rd ed., Sinauer Associates Inc, 1992.
• W M Hart (ed.), Adler's Physiology of the Eye, Clinical Applications. 9th ed., Mosby, 1992.