Ione Fine
Associate Professor
Department of Psychology
University of Washington
My goal is to understand the mechanisms of plasticity in the human brain by linking changes in function to changes in neuroanatomical structure. I currently study the effects of human visual deprivation using a conjunction of “state-of-the-art” imaging techniques including BOLD imaging, magnetic resonance spectroscopy and high resolution structural imaging.
While the effects of visual deprivation have been well studied in animal models, much less is known about the effects of blindness on human early visual pathways. I think this is an interesting scientific question for two reasons. First, a deeper understanding of the effects of blindness will prove increasingly important as new sight restoration procedures (such as retinal prosthetic implants, epithelial stem cell replacements, gene therapies and retinal transplants) become available over the next few decades. Second, blindness due to peripheral causes is an excellent model system for understanding prenatal, postnatal and adult cortical plasticity.
You can find my publications here