Stephen L. Hicks PhD
Research Areas
Medical Sciences Division Themes
- Neuroscience
Neuroscience Sub-Themes
Neuroscience Keywords
Collaborators
- Sarah Tabrizi, Professor of Clinical Neurology, Institute of Neurology, UCL
- Martin Turner, Consultant Neurologist, Oxford MND Centre, University of Oxford
- Holly Bridge, Research Fellow, FMRIB Centre, University of Oxford
| Web | Personal Website |
|---|---|
| Department | Department of Clinical Neurology |
Basic network for the generation of voluntary eye movements.
My research is in the neuroscience of how we see.
In one respect this concerns the process of how we make eye movements around our environment. Fast eye movements, or saccades, are used to fixate our foveal vision onto objects of interest. Saccades are controlled by a set of systems including the visual system and the brainstem oculomotor network. A futher level of control is supplied by the basal ganglia and frontal cortices which help to restrain eye movements to only the best and most appropriate targets. As such, studying eye movement deficits can tell us a great deal about diseases that affect the basal ganglia and frontal cortex, such as Huntington's and Parkinson's Disease. I'm involved in several oculomotor studies of these diseases, including the longitudinal biomarker study, Track-HD, headed by Professor Sarah Tabrizi.
In collaboration with Drs Martin Turner and Rakesh Sharma and Ms Claire Berna, we are using eyetracking to study frontal cortex function in Motor Neuron Disease. This study involves adapting common neuropsychological tests so they may be performed using gaze for patients with limited upper limb mobility.
I am very interested in visual prosthetics. These are electronic visual aids that can support or replace failing vision. Using image processing techniques adapted from robotics, sensitive behavioural mode detectors and a novel non-invasive display, we are beginning a 12 month study to develop and test the feasibility of a prosthetic device in such diseases as Age-Related Macular Degeneration and Retinitis Pigmentosa. In collaboration with Professor Robert MacLaren we will also be studying the degree of sight restored in completely blind people by the use of an implanted retinal prosthetic.
We are also investigating "at-home" therapies for the restoration of functional sight to stroke-related visual loss, or hemianopia
I'm also working on fundamental scientific questions on the nature of sight in healthy people, in particular the neural substrates of binocular vision and the emergence of 3D depth in the visual cortex, in collaboration with Dr Clive Rosenthal.
For information on the development of our computerised glasses for visually impaired people, please see the Oxford Science Blog "Bionic glasses for poor vision", visit the website www.smart-specs.com, or contact me at info@smart-specs.com
Sources of Funding
CHDI
NIHR i4i
John Fell Foundation - Oxford
EPSRC
Selected Publications
- Dumas EM, van den Bogaard S, Ruber M, Reilman RR, Stout JC, Craufurd D, Hicks Stephen, and Kennard Christopher (2010 >>in print<<) Early changes in white matter pathways of the sensorimotor cortex in premanifest Huntington’s Disease Preprint.
- Van Rheede J, Kennard Christopher, and Hicks Stephen (2010 >>in print<<) Simulating Prosthetic Vision: Optimising the Information Content of a Limited Visual Display Preprint.
- Robert Matthieu PA, Nachev Parashkev C, Hicks Stephen L, Golding Charlotte VP, Tabrizi Sarah J, and Kennard Christopher (2009) Saccadometry of conditional rules in presymptomatic Huntington's disease. Ann N Y Acad Sci, 1164:444-50.
- Tabrizi S J, Langbehn D R, Leavitt B R, Roos R A, Durr A, Craufurd D, Kennard C, Hicks S L, Fox N C, Scahill R I, Borowsky B, Tobin A J, Rosas H D, Johnson H, Reilmann R, Landwehrmeyer B, and Stout J C (2009) Biological and clinical manifestations of Huntington's disease in the longitudinal TRACK-HD study: cross-sectional analysis of baseline data. Lancet Neurol.
- Hicks Stephen L, Robert Matthieu PA, Golding Charlotte VP, Tabrizi Sarah J, and Kennard Christopher (2008) Oculomotor deficits indicate the progression of Huntington's disease. Prog Brain Res, 171:555-8.
- Kloppel Stefan, Draganski Bogdan, Golding Charlotte V, Chu Carlton, Nagy Zoltan, Cook Philip A, Hicks Stephen L, Kennard Christopher, Alexander Daniel C, Parker Geoff JM, Tabrizi Sarah J, and Frackowiak Richard SJ (2008) White matter connections reflect changes in voluntary-guided saccades in pre-symptomatic Huntington's disease. Brain, 131(Pt 1):196-204.
- Hicks Stephen and et al (2004) Hippocampal field responses to direct electrical stimulation of the vestibular system in awake or anaesthetised guinea pigs Proceedings of the Australian Neuroscience Society, 15(87).
