Get Involved
If you are interested in vision science or want to learn more about low vision and blindness, there are many opportunities to get involved at The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute.
The research in my Lab is focused on the fields of neuroplasticity, brain mechanisms of art and learning, neurorehabilitation of blindness, memory and spatial cognition, navigation, vision deficits in TBI, and multimodal sensorimotor processing across levels of visual impairment. For this research we integrate multiple brain imaging techniques, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), tensor-based brain morphometry (TBM), and electroencephalography (EEG), as well as virtual reality, motion-capture, and specialized remote-research systems.
This project focuses on the emerging area of the neuroscience of art learning. It addresses the important issue of how the brain learns complex skills, specifically the process of drawing, through two different sensory modalities. Visual art, and drawing in particular, engages an orchestrated system of cognitive elements extending beyond mere visual perception. This brain system involves an array of cross-cognitive interactions for advanced learning in diverse sensory environments. However, there is a lack of systematic studies of the neural mechanisms of learning in visual art, or of the…
The Smith-Kettlewell Brain Imaging Center supports a wide variety of human brain imaging modalities, including MRI, MRI morphometry, functional MRI, fMR Iretonogrphy, fMRI dynamics, functional connectivity, Granger-causal connectivity, DTI, DTI tractography, whole-head EEG, EEG functional connectivity, ERG, EEG eye tracking, electroblepharography, etc. Our work centers on human visual neuroscience and computational vision, especially in the areas of human visual processing in adults, of the diagnosis of eye diseases and cortical deficits in infants and adults, on brain plasticity in relation…
Lora Likova discussed her research in a webinar "Harnessing the Power of ‘Visual’ Art: Memory-Drawing Training Drives Rapid Neuroplasticity in the Blind and Sighted" hosted by the Clinical Vision Sciences Technical Group of OPTICA (formerly Optical Society of America).
A Smith-Kettlewell scientist, Dr. Lora Likova, develops unique art training to drive brain plasticity in totally blind and visually impaired people.
A recent posting on the therapeutic value of the brain reorganization brought about by Lora Likova’s blind drawing training paradigm may be found here: abcsfortherapists.com/drawing-intervention-yields-promising-changes-in-the-brain
If you are interested in vision science or want to learn more about low vision and blindness, there are many opportunities to get involved at The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute.