Evolving Vision: Survival of the Fittest

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Tree shrews possess a unique visual system with large eyes and high acuity, enabling them to process visual information differently than mice, which have limited visual capabilities despite extensive labs studying their vision. The discovery of face cells in the tree shrew's V2 area suggests that even without a developed infero-temporal cortex, tree shrews perform similar functions using alternative brain structures. This evolution from a shallow to a deeper hierarchy of visual processing reflects survival advantages for those with superior visual capabilities. Additionally, the brain's ability to sync visual and auditory inputs, despite natural delays in processing time, supports the concept of predictive coding, where perception is influenced by the brain's interpretations of mismatched sensory signals.

The human brain does a pretty amazing job of taking in a huge amount of data from multiple sensory modalities -- vision, hearing, smell, etc. -- and constructing a coherent picture of the world, constantly being updated in real time. (Although perhaps in discrete moments, rather than continuously, as we learn in this podcast...) We're a long way from completely understanding how that works, but amazing progress has been made in identifying specific parts of the brain with specific functions in this process. Today we talk to leading neuroscientist Doris Tsao about the specific workings of vision, from how we recognize faces to how we construct a model of the world around us.

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Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2024/07/29/284-doris-tsao-on-how-the-brain-turns-vision-into-the-world/

Doris Tsao received her Ph.D. in neurobiology from Harvard University. She is currently a professor of molecular and cell biology, and a member of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, at the University of California, Berkeley. Among her awards are a MacArthur Fellowship, membership in the National Academy of Sciences, the Eppendorf and Science International Prize in Neurobiology, the National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Award, the Golden Brain Award from the Minerva Foundation, the Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize, and the Kavli Prize in Neuroscience.

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