NYU/CNS : Faculty : Core Faculty : J. Anthony Movshon

J. Anthony Movshon

Vision and visual development

I am interested in how the brain encodes and decodes visual information, and in the mechanisms that put that information to use in the control of behavior. My research concerns the function and development of the primate visual system, especially the visual areas of the cerebral cortex. My laboratory supports work on neurophysiology, neuroanatomy, and psychophysics; the main experimental tool is electrophysiological recording from single neurons in anesthetized and alert monkeys. We stress analytical and quantitative approaches to the study of visual receptive fields. Conceptually, much of this research draws on related work in visual psychophysics, and on computational approaches to understanding brain organization and visual processing.

I received my doctorate from Cambridge University in 1975, where I studied visual neurophysiology and psychophysics. I joined the faculty at New York University that same year, and have remained here apart from a sabbatical year spent at Oxford University.

My laboratory works mostly in two broad areas. The first is concerned with analysis of the functional properties of neurons in the extrastriate visual areas of the macaque monkey's cerebral cortex, with special emphasis on the roles of those areas in processing information about visual motion, form, and color. I am particularly interested in the relationships between visual signals in these areas, and the perceptual decisions and motor activity they support. The second group of projects focuses on analysis of the functional development of the cortical visual system in monkeys, and the way that development is affected by forms of abnormal early visual experience that produce a visual system disorder known as amblyopia.

Much of my work seeks to uncover the links between brain and behavior by studying the relationship between neuronal activity in the visual system and its perceptual and motor consequences.

Click for my full cv, and my Google Scholar profile. You may also want to visit the Visual Neuroscience Laboratory web page.

E-mail: movshon@nyu.edu

Representative Publications

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M. Carandini, D. J. Heeger and J. A. Movshon (1997). Linearity and normalization in simple cells of the macaque primary visual cortex. Journal of Neuroscience 17: 8621-8644.

S. G. Lisberger and J. A. Movshon (1999). Visual motion analysis for pursuit eye movements in area MT of macaque monkeys. Journal of Neuroscience 19: 2224-2246.

M. N. Shadlen and J. A. Movshon (1999). Synchrony unbound: a critical evaluation of the temporal binding hypothesis. Neuron 24: 67-77.

J. R. Cavanaugh, W. Bair and J. A. Movshon (2002). Nature and interaction of signals from the receptive field center and surround in macaque V1 neurons. Journal of Neurophysiology 88: 2530-2546.

A. Kohn and J. A. Movshon (2004). Adaptation changes the direction tuning of macaque MT neurons. Nature Neuroscience 7: 764-772.

M. A. Smith, N. J. Majaj and J. A. Movshon (2005). Dynamics of motion signaling by neurons in macaque area MT. Nature Neuroscience 8: 220-228.

N. C. Rust, O. Schwartz, E. P. Simoncelli and J. A. Movshon (2005). Spatiotemporal elements of macaque V1 receptive fields. Neuron 46: 945-956.

M. Jazayeri and J. A. Movshon (2006). Optimal representation of sensory information by neural populations. Nature Neuroscience 9: 690-696.

N.C. Rust, V. Mante, E.P. Simoncelli and J.A. Movshon (2006). How MT cells analyze the motion of visual patterns. Nature Neuroscience 9: 1421-1431.

M. Jazayeri and J. A. Movshon (2007). A new perceptual illusion reveals mechanisms of sensory decoding. Nature 446: 912-915.

L. Chukoskie and J. A. Movshon (2009). Modulation of visual signals in macaque MT and MST neurons during pursuit eye movement Journal of Neurophysiology 102: 3225-3233.

C. Tailby, N. J. Majaj and J. A. Movshon (2010). Binocular integration of pattern motion signals by MT neurons and by human observers. Journal of Neuroscience 30: 7344-7349.

Y. El-Shamayleh, L. Kiorpes, A. Kohn and J. A. Movshon (2010). Visual motion processing by neurons in area MT of macaque monkeys with experimental amblyopia. Journal of Neuroscience 30: 12198-12209.

D. M. Levi, S. P. McKee and J. A. Movshon (2011). Visual deficits in anisometropia. Vision Research 51: 48-57.

A. B. A. Graf, A. Kohn, M. Jazayeri and J. A. Movshon (2011). Decoding the activity of neuronal populations in macaque primary visual cortex. Nature Neuroscience 14: 239-245.

J. H. Hedges, Y. Gartshteyn, A. Kohn, N. C. Rust, M. N. Shadlen, W. T. Newsome and J. A. Movshon (2011). Dissociation of neuronal and psychophysical responses to local and global motion. Current Biology 21: 2023-2028.