The human vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) is known to undergo major plastic modification in coping with sensory conflict brought about by optical reversing prisms. The first phase of this study proposes a simple model to account for this modifiability in terms of known neurophysiology. To study the phenomenon further two series of experiments were conducted on long-term vision-reversed cats. For this a new computer technique was developed to analyse oculomotor responses. The first series studied the time course and amplitude dependence of adaptation; the second, the frequency response of the fully adapted system. The adaptive process exhibited strict limitations, the functional effectiveness of which is quantitatively defined. The findings as a whole suggest that adaptive mechanisms other than the VOR are at play and that far more complex interactions exist between vestibulo- and visual-motor mechanisms than originally envisaged.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.68490 |
| Date | January 1978 |
| Creators | Davies, Peter Robert Talbot. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Electrical Engineering) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 000319342, proquestno: AAINK42911, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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