Research Group attends Applied Vision Association (AVA) Christmas Meeting

Our research group attended the 2023 Christmas meeting of the Applied Vision Association (AVA). This year, the annual conference was organized on Monday, 18 December 2023, at the Royal Holloway University, just outside of London. We were represented by our group leader Prof. Dr. Manuel Spitschan and student assistant researcher Alexander Hahn.

For his research contributions in unifying the fields of vision and circadian neuroscience, Prof. Dr. Spitschan was awarded the prestigious David Marr Medal (see prior announcements from the MPI and from TUM) and gave a summarising talk about his past and current research topics entitled “Photoreceptor mechanisms underlying human non-visual responses to light”, with the following focus:

Beyond vision, light exposure profoundly affects physiology and behaviour by synchronising our circadian clock to the light-dark cycle and suppressing the production of the hormone melatonin. These ‘non-visual’ functions are mediated by a subset of retinal ganglion cells expressing the photopigment melanopsin. Many details on retinal mechanisms mediating the non-visual effects of light remain unclear. In this talk, I will describe my research characterising the retinal mechanisms underlying ‘non-visual’ photoreception in humans.

 Alexander Hahn presented a poster entitled “Eye movements, pupil size and scene perception in real-world indoor and outdoor scenes”, covering his recently completed Bachelor’s thesis from the University of Tuebingen about eye movement characteristics in naturalistic environments.