- Jon Kaas
Jon Kaas is a Professor in
Vanderbilt University and a member of theUnited States National Academy of Sciences . He has made fundamental discoveries about the organization of the mammalianbrain , including the description of many areas of thecerebral cortex and theirneuroplasticity .Work from the Kaas laboratory is notable for its emphasis on
evolutionary biology . Through a comparative approach, Prof. Kaas tries to understand how complex brains evolved from ancestor forms which had relatively few areas. Some of the career highlights include:* Some of the first descriptions of topographically organized areas in the
extrastriate cortex ofprimates , including the middle temporal areaMT , or V5 (Allman and Kaas, 1971), and thedorsomedial area , or V6.
* Demonstration of changes in the topographic representation of sensory organs in thecerebral cortex after lesions of thesensory organs (Kaas et al. 1990; see alsoneuroplasticity ).References
*Allman JM, Kaas JH (1971) A representation of the visual field in the caudal third of the middle tempral gyrus of the owl monkey (Aotus trivirgatus). Brain Res 31(1):85-105.
*Allman JM, Kaas JH (1975) The dorsomedial cortical visual area: a third tier area in the occipital lobe of the owl monkey (Aotus trivirgatus). Brain Res 100(3):473-487.
*Kaas JH, Krubitzer LA, Chino YM, Langston AL, Polley EH, Blair N (1990) Reorganization of retinotopic cortical maps in adult mammals after lesions of the retina. Science 248(4952):229-231.
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