My goal is to understand the mechanisms of plasticity in the human brain by linking changes in function to changes in neuroanatomical structure, with a particular focus on the effects of early sensory loss and prosthetic vision. My work can be roughly divided into three inter-related areas of research (I’ve provided recent example papers for each research direction).
If humans become blind early in life, they only regain very limited ability to make use of that sense if it is ever restored in adulthood.
- Fine I, Wade AR, Brewer AA, May MG, Goodman DF, Boynton GM, Wandell BA, MacLeod DI. Long-term deprivation affects visual perception and cortex. Nat Neurosci 2003;6:915-916. Recommended by Faculty of 1000.
- Huber, E., Webster, J, Brewer, A., MacLeod, D.I., Wandell, B, Boynton, G.M., Wade, A., Fine, I. A Lack of Experience-Dependent Plasticity after More than a Decade of Recovered Sight. Psychological Science. 2015; 26(4):393-401.
There is also “cross-modal plasticity” – colonization of the brain regions that normally serve the missing sense by remaining senses.
- Fine, I. & Park, W. J. Do you hear what I see? How do early blind individuals experience object motion? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 2023, 378, 20210460
- Park WJ, Fine I. The perception of auditory motion in sighted and early blind individuals. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023 Dec 5;120(49):e2310156120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2310156120. Epub 2023 Nov 28.PMID: 38015842
This plasticity has implications for the ability to restore sight using retinal prosthetics.
- Esquenazi RB, Meier K, Beyeler M, Boynton GM, Fine I. Learning to see again: Perceptual learning of simulated abnormal on- off-cell population responses in sighted individuals. J Vis. 2021 Dec 1;21(13):10. doi: 10.1167/jov.21.13.10.
- Fine, I., Boynton, G.M., Pulse trains to percepts: A virtual patient describing the perceptual effects of human visual cortical stimulation. Scientific Reports, 2024 Jul 29;14(1):17400.
I work in close collaboration with other PIs, for more information see the VisCog website. For information about human neuroscience at UW go to the CHN website.
For videos on sight recovery individual MM go here (you’ll need to ask for permission and wait for me to grant access).