Eye Opener: Welcome to the latest edition of CRS News. From lectures and research to news stories and events, it's our business to be up to date. This is our way of sharing the new ideas we've spotted with our customers, our collaborators and the wider scientific community of which we are proud to be a part. As the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting draws near, it seems the perfect time to focus on recent developments in the field of visual neuroscience and to show you how our Visual Stimulators Generators have been used to great success in a number of outstanding publications. To learn more about us, visit www.crsltd.com

Society for Neuroscience, San Diego, USA 3rd to 7th November 2007

Tom Robson, Jill Legane and Katy Smith will be available to answer any questions you might have about the ViSaGe, MRI-Live!, BlueGain or any of our other tools for visual neuroscience applications.

Come and find us at booth 3617: you should be able to spot us easily as we will be wearing shirts with the BlueGain and MRI-Live! logos, and Tom will be recording EOGs throughout the day using the wireless BlueGain system.

	Quick Links

	Click on a link below to jump straight to a topic in this newsletter: - Prof. Wu Li: Perceptual learning and top-down influences in primary visual cortex - Prof. Kathy Mullen: Colour processing in the human LGN and cortex measured with fMRI - Prof. Mel Goodale: Visual Duplicity: action without perception in the human visual system - Prof. Larry Abbott: The interaction of evoked and spontaneous activity in visual processing - The ViSaGe Advantage: Frame accurate timing and synchronous trigger pulse - CRS sponsored talks: Our programme for 2007 - CRS product news: Equipment and accessories for fMRI

Get the ViSaGe Advantage

We have produced instruments called Visual Stimulus Generators (VSGs) for nearly 20 years. These are highly flexible, programmable computer graphics systems, and have many unique features created specially for vision scientists that are simply not available in other systems. For example: a frame-interrupt driven, real-time display driver for Windows, 14bit luminance and colour resolution, and an integrated analog and digital I/O interface.

Since our VSGs have been used in thousands of experiments and are cited in hundreds of articles in the leading peer-reviewed journals, they have gained a reputation as the gold standard tool for vision research.

For a sample list of recent publications that cite use of our VSGs, visit our website.

The latest revision called ViSaGe, which was first launched at the Vision Sciences Society meeting in 2004, is even more powerful than previous designs and! now consists of a PCI Express framestore card and a bench-top Control Unit (the black tower you can see in the picture).

The ViSaGe is simple to control from MATLAB using a set of special CRS extensions. These communicate with our proprietary Real Time Scheduler technology, which accesses the framestore GPU independently of Windows, and ensures accurate, robust stimulus timing, every time, on every compatible computer. The ViSaGe is easy to integrate into existing laboratory setups and is an ideal instrument for visual neuroscience applications.

As well as multiple digital I/O lines for triggering and synchronisation, the ViSaGe provides high performance, buffered analog I/O for data acquisition synchronised to the video display. Our tightly integrated hardware and software concept guarantees that displays change exactly when you want them to: dropped and inserted frames are simply not an issue, and triggers are always produced at precisely the right moment i! n time. Both of these factors are crucial for getting valid in! formatio n for data analysis, which is why so many neuroscientists rely on our CRS Visual Stimulus Generators for their research.

Research Topic - Neurophysiology

Perceptual Learning
Recent studies of perceptual learning suggest that improvements in sensory discrimination after extended periods of practice produce changes in neural circuitry at relatively early stages of cortical sensory processing. Novel experiments conducted by Prof. Wu Li and colleagues in Professor Charles Gilbert's neurobiology laboratory at Rockefeller University examined the effects of stimulus context, behavioural goals and past experience on visual processing in the primary visual cortex (V1).

They showed that when their subjects were trained in a shape discrimination task, with stimuli produced using a CRS Visual Stimulus Generator, V1 neurons took on novel functional properties related to the attributes of the trained shapes. Furthermore, these properties depended on the perceptual task being performed; neurons responded very differently to an identical visual stimulus under different vis! ual discrimination tasks.

To find out more about this research theme, visit our website.

The Interaction of Evoked and Spontaneous Activity in Visual Processing
In vivo recordings from the primary visual cortex reveal that spontaneous background activity can be as complex as activity evoked by visual stimuli. Embedding visually evoked responses in such a strong and complex background seems like a confusing way to represent information about the visual world.

However, in his VSS 2007 Keynote Prof. Larry Abbott discusses how modelling studies indicate that, contrary to intuition, information about visual stimuli may be better conveyed by a network displaying chaotic background activity than by a network without spontaneous activity. If you did not attend the final Vision Sciences Society annual meeting in Sarasota earlier this year, you can listen to the complete keynote again by visiting our website.

Research Topic - fMRI

Colour Processing
Prof. Kathy Mullen shows how high powered 4T MRI scans have enabled her research group to delve further into the brain and make new discoveries about the response to colour stimuli in early stages of visual processing in the cortex and LGN. The fMRI experimental protocol controlled for attention and allowed them to compare responses to L/M opponent, S-cone and achromatic contrast within the same scan. Kathy presented this pioneering piece of work at the OSA Fall Vision Meeting in September, and is available to watch again exclusively on our website.

Visual Duplicity
At last year's XIV Kanizsa Lecture, held at the University of Trieste in Italy, Prof. Mel Goodale took the audience on an extended tour of recent research supporting the concept of separate, but interacting streams in visual perception; the dorsal and ventral streams. Using a variety of fMRI and behavioural studies he demonstrated the important insights into the organization and nature of these two streams and goes on to consider why two separate pathways have emerged. Revisit this fascinating lecture on our website.

Sponsored Talks

Cambridge Research Systems is committed to a programme of active involvement in a wide range of academic and research activities. In 2007 we have continued with our recent tradition of providing travel grants for invited speakers and have also contributed to the funding of associated social events. The following talks are scheduled to be recorded during October, November and December and will appear soon after in the Research area of our website in streaming Flash format:

W. S. Stiles Memorial Lecture
'Eye movements and actions: knowing where to look'

Professor Michael F Land FRS.
Sussex Vision Laboratory, University of Sussex.

UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, London, UK - 29^th October 2007

15th Annual Object Perception, Attention and Memory
'Memory and prediction: that's what the brain is in business for'

Professor Vincent Di Lollo.
Department of Psychology, Simon Fraser University.

OPAM 2007, Long Beach, USA - 15^th November 2007

12th AVA Christmas Meeting
'Title: TBC'

Professor Stuart Anstis.
Psychology Department, University of California, San Diego.

Aston University, Birmingham, UK - 17^th December 2007

We are able to support a small number of conferences, and are always interested in new opportunities to give assistance to relevant meetings. If you are a conference organiser, and would like to discuss sponsorship, please contact us by email enquiries@crsltd.com

Product News from CRS

MediGoggles - Interchangeable prescriptive goggles for MRI, fMRI, MEG, PET, CT and EEG!

MediGoggles offer a completely safe and simple way to correct patient vision in certain research environments. The goggles put subjects at ease in what can potentially be, with poor vision, a disorientating and frightening situation,while allowing you to collect data that is artefact free from a calm and comfortable subject. They cater for a wide variety of prescriptions, ranging from -6 to +6 dipotre in 1.0 or 0.5 dioptre increments.

MRI-Live!

MRI-Live! is an integrated video display and eyetracker for fMRI. Its novel design incorporates a unique combination of technologies to provide the ultimate tool for human brain mapping.

BrainVoyager

Cross-platform, easy to use software for the analysis and visualization of functional and anatomical MRI data. Now with support for DTI.

NoMoCo Pillow

A unique head restraint kit for fMRI gives comfort and sensory feedback to prevent subject movement wasting your scan data.

Lumina Response Box

The subject response box suitable for use in MRI, compatible with ViSaGe.

T: +44 (0)1634 720707 | F: +44 (0)1634 720719 | E: enquiries@crsltd.com | W: www.crsltd.com

To discontinue mailings please click here to Unsubscribe
All personal data collected will be processed in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998.
We will not disclose your data to any third party unless required to do so by law or otherwise with your consent.