On Friday 6 December 2019, Professor Semir Zeki is giving a lecture entitled: “A novel picture of the organization of the visual brain”.
Professor Semir Zeki is one of the foremost neurobiologists of his generation. He obtained his Ph.D. in anatomy from University College in London (UCL), followed by post-doctoral research in the United States. Over the next three decades, he pursued a distinguished career in neurobiology, and is currently Professor of Neuroaesthetics at UCL, Department of Developmental Biology. Zeki is a Fellow of the prestigious Royal Society (London), foreign member of the American Philosophical Society, Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (London), and member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts and the Academia Ejuropae. He is also a member of the Scientific Board of Governors at the Scripps Research Institute and former Director of the Welcome Laboratory of Neurobiology at UCL between 1994 and 2001.
Professor Zeki’s lifetime contributions are centered on the organization of the visual cortex in humans and other primates. One of his earlier keynote findings was the discovery that specific areas of the visual cortex engage in segregated responses to either color vision or visual motion stimulation, and that color and visual motion are perceived at different times. He described how colors are represented in the visual cortex and how that region uses color-coded cells to process color images. From the wealth of information that he gathered over several years on vision and motion pathways, Zeki formulated an overall theory of visual consciousness in which he proposed that the visual brain contains several, parallel and functionally specialized processing areas. Subsequently, he developed a novel psychophysical technique which showed that the cortical regions processing a visual stimulus are also involved in its perception. This cutting-edge discovery provided the basis for his revolutionary concept that consciousness is not a unity, but an assembly of numerous micro-consciousnesses distributed both in time and space. He is studying how these visual micro-consciousnesses are integrated to produce a unified perception of the visual scene.
The talk will be held on Friday 6 December 2019 at 10:30 at Hvidovre Hospital, Education building, room 1.
