More on episode 3: The art of perception
6.3 mb mp3 (13:48 ) | Subscribe through iTunes
Margaret Livingstone uses art to understand how we perceive and process visual stimuli
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HMS professor of neurobiology Margaret Livingstone studies vision, particularly how “what we see” is processed in the brain. Her best known work utilizes art as a means to understand how we perceive and process visual stimuli, and her 2002 book, Vision and Art: The Biology of Seeing, explains the science behind our experience viewing such artistic mainstays as impressionist paintings and the Mona Lisa’s smile.
Livingstone is using cartoons in her current work to determine how the brain handles facial recognition. Her team recently discovered how monkeys use an individual’s most distinctive features – a caricature, basically – to recognize faces, a finding that may lead to advances in the treatment of prosopagnosia (the inability to recognize faces), face recognition algorithms used in computer and robotic vision, or automatic security screening at airports and other high-security facilities.
Livingstone’s bio page
5.2 mb mp3 (5:43) with additional excerpts from Judith Montminy’s interview with Livingstone
Charles Nelson employs noninvasive techniques to measure the brain activity of children as they examine faces
Charles Nelson, professor of pediatrics at HMS and director of the Laboratories of Cognitive Science at Children’s Hospital Boston, is one of the leading experts in the development of facial recognition. He uses non-invasive tools to measure brain activity while infants and children perform computerized face recognition tasks at different stages of development. He hopes to map this ability in normal children and use the information to help children at risk of developing disorders such as autism, which affects the ability to recognize faces and expressions.
Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience at Children’s Hospital Boston
4 mb mp3 (8:44) with additional excerpts from Yvonna Reekie’s interview with Nelson
The microbes within
You’re more microbe than mammal—at least according to your latest cell count. For every one mammalian cell that constitutes you, there are 99 foreign bacterial and viral cells. The vast majority of these cells live in our intestinal tract and are essential for many biological functions.
Dennis Kasper, Harvard Medical School professor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, has now found that this ecosystem of intestinal bacteria may also be a cornucopia of potential drug candidates.
