GROUNDING, CAMOUFLAGE & CONTOUR PERCEPTION • - We’ve had a lot of rattlesnakes in California this summer; the little ones have been making their way into the yard. This video offers a window into camouflage which is a topic I’ve been obsessed with since I was a kid. Camouflage is all about visual neuroscience. Understanding camouflage can teach you a lot about how *you* see the world & the underlying circuits. (Make sure you see the last slide). - Camouflage is often NOT about color matching. It is often about breaking up perception of the outer edge of the body with markings that have continuity with foliage around it, etc. It’s a “best guess” about the frequency of branches, blades of grass, etc. in the environment but if you think about it, it’s all about how the prey or predator views the world. How would animals know that? They are not snipers in prep. Nature has to work it out over generations. Best costume wins/survives (& reproduces). - The solution capitalizes on a really fundamental feature of the visual system of all avians and mammals which is they (we included) tend to link objects that are oriented in the same direction/along the same angles. (See final slide for basic example). We actually have specific circuits in our visual cortex for linking these contours across space. - @thefbinegotiator gifted us a snake mover when he visited so I ended up relocating it. The squirrels were angry about that one. Thank you Chris! - I’ll be talking more about the evolution of color vision, and the visual system in general on some special episodes of the Huberman Lab podcast and here on Instagram. It actually has profound health implications, calls for controling lighting etc. - New episodes out every Monday. This coming week it’s me solo re: microplastics and endocrine disruptors. - Put any questions you might have in the comments section below this post and as always, thank you for your interest in science! - @hubermanlab @stanford.med @stanford - #neuroscience #science #ciencia #neurocoencia #snake #camouflage #vision #contour