PhD defence M. (Marcella) Spoor

This thesis deals with measuring compensatory eye movements to assess sensory and learning properties of humans and mice. In Chapter 1, a number of the key elements of vision and learning, which underlie the thesis are introduced, and an outline of the rest of the thesis is given. In Chapter 2, we investigated how human gaze following eye movements (i.e. compensatory and smooth pursuit eyemevents) are affected by stimulus contrast and spatial frequency and by aberrations in central visual acuity due to refractive errors. In Chapter 3, we investigated hearing and vision in Ercc1δ/− mutant mice, which are deficient in DNA repair of helix-distorting DNA lesions and interstrand DNA crosslinks, in order to investigate whether DNA damage can contribute to age-related hearing and vision loss. In Chapter 4, we screened wild-type mice of varying pigmentation for ocular motor abnormalities in order to identify a possible mouse model for Infantile Nystagmus Syndrome (INS). In Chapter 5, we studied anodal direct current stimulation (DCS) of the cerebellum. In Chapter 6, the behavioural effects of environmental enrichment on contrast sensitivity, reflexive eye movements and on oculomotor learning were measured in mice that were housed in an enriched environment for a period of 3 weeks.

The public defence will take place at the Prof. Andries Queridoroom, 3rd floor Education Center, Erasmus MC. The ceremony will begin exactly at 11.30 hrs. In light of the solemn nature of the ceremony, we recommend that you do not take children under the age of 6 to the first part of the ceremony.