报告题目：Impact of Healthy Ageing on Visuo-Spatial Cognition
报告人：Prof. Angelo Arleo（Institute of Vision, Aging in Vision and Action Lab, Research Chair Silversight, CNRS - INSERM - Sorbonne University）
主持人：周永迪教授
时间: 2019年3月27日，10:00-11:00
地点：中北校区俊秀楼305
报告简介：Ageing gradually alters neurophysiological, perceptual, and cognitive aspects of vision. Age-related alterations in retinal processing and visuo-spatial perception are inexorably accompanied by compensatory changes in locomotion, spatial orientation, and goal-directed navigation. Worldwide, people over 65 years account for 50% of the loss of productivity and mobility due to poor vision, aggravated by the fact that 9-25% of the older population suffer from age-related macular degeneration, with over 80% of those affected becoming legally blind after 70 years of age. The primary objective of our laboratory at the Vision Institute - Sorbonne University is to improve our understanding of age-related visuo-cognitive deterioration and to develop diagnostic and rehabilitation solutions to counter autonomy loss and improve vision-related quality of life. First, this talk will present the French cohort study SilverSight, which assesses anatomic and functional changes induced by healthy and pathological visual ageing (both cross-sectionally and longitudinally). The goal is to understand the relationships between retinal cellular changes (e.g., anatomical and physiological modifications measured with high-resolution adaptive optics retina imaging) and visual symptoms, to identify functional biomarkers of normal and pathological aging. The multidimensional screening realized by the SilverSight follow-up cohort study provides a unique database to assess the impact of aging on vision and it has the potential to uncover cross-causal functional signatures of pathogenic ageing mechanisms. Second, this talk will focus on age-related changes in spatial learning during real-world navigation. These changes have been previously characterised in terms of deficits in the use of allocentric strategies. However, given that navigation strategies are conditioned by the sensory cues present in the environment, an alternative hypothesis is that navigation difficulties in aged people are associated with spatial cue processing rather than with strategic choices. In a first experiment, we had young and older participants (n=40) navigate in a real, ecological environment. Our findings show that older adults reorient preferentially according to geometric cues, whereas young adults preferentially use landmarks. Recording of both body and eye movements as subjects reoriented in space allowed us to identify specific oculomotor signatures associated with either landmark or geometric preference. Gaze dynamics were predictive of spatial cue preference. These results extend previous findings on geometric cue preference in children and therefore suggest an inverted U-profile of landmark processing across lifespan. Given the extensive use of landmarks during spatial navigation paradigms, these results challenge the traditional view of a specific deficit for llocentric strategies in ageing. In a second experiment, we tested this hypothesis by having children, young and older adults (n=79) navigate virtual Y-maze in which we controlled the presence of landmarks and geometric cues. When only landmarks were available, we observed the classical age-related deficit in the use of allocentric strategies. However, our results show that children and older adults were as efficient as young adults to use allocentric strategies when geometric cues were provided by the maze. Finally, preliminary data from off-line anatomical MRI scans show a correlation between navigation performance and gray matter integrity of scene-selective structures involved in landmark processing (parahippocampal place area, PPA, and retrosplenial cortex, RSC), whereas no correlation is found with hippocampal regions. Overall, these results highlight the need for reframing the classical allocentric/egocentric dichotomy in order to integrate a landmark/geometry one that could better explain age-related spatial cognition changes.
报告人简介：Angelo Arleo is a Director of Research at CNRS and a team leader at the Vision Institute, Paris, France. He primarily explores the perceptual and cognitive consequences of visual aging in humans. He is the Chairholder of the ANR Research Chair SilverSight, which pioneers fundamental research to foster innovative health and IT developments. Overall, his research interests span the adaptive processes mediating the ability of animals and humans to (i) interact with the environment through manifold sensory modalities, and (ii) learn contextual representations underpinning cognitive functions. He combines experimental and computational tools in the attempt of cross-linking multiple organization levels, ultimately providing the basis for a better understanding of the action-perception loop. He received a MSc degree from the University of Milan, Italy, in 1996. He joined W. Gerstner’s Laboratory of Computational Neuroscience at the EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, Switzerland) in 1997, where he received his PhD in 2000. He did a postdoctoral training in experimental neuroscience in A. Berthoz’s Laboratory of Physiology of Perception and Action at Collège de France, Paris, from 2001 to 2003. He worked as a R&D fellow at CSL Sony, Paris, from 2004 to 2006. He received his Habilitation to Direct Research (HDR) in Life Science from the Univ. Pierre and Marie Curie, Paris, in 2005. He was appointed as permanent (CR1) CNRS researcher in 2007. From 2007 to2013, he directed the Adaptive NeuroComputation (ANC) group in the unit of Neurobiology of Adaptive Processes, directed by J. Mariani, at the Univ. Pierre & Marie Curie, in Paris. In 2012, the CNRS endorsed his action by promoting him Director of Research (DR2). In 2014, he joined the Vision Institute, directed by J.-A. Sahel, to set the new Aging in Vision & Action lab, whose research program whose framed within the academic-clinical-industrial partnership (Joint Research Lab) involving the Vision Institute, the Quinze-Vingts National Ophthalmic Hospital and Essilor Internation. In 2015, he was awarded the Chairholdership of the ANR Research Chair Silversight, initially during the period 2015-2018, and subsequently renewed until Dec 2022.