Kathy T. Mullen

Professor Kathy T. Mullen is a distinguished academic at McGill University's Department of Ophthalmology, affiliated with the McGill Vision Research unit. Her research focuses on understanding visual pathways and color perception through human behavioral experiments and brain imaging techniques like fMRI and MEG. She investigates how the brain processes color differences to construct spatial maps and perceives objects, with particular attention to chromatic and achromatic contrast encoding. Her work also explores developmental aspects of color cognition in young children.

Her studies use advanced neuroimaging to identify brain regions involved in color processing, including the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) and visual cortex. Key areas of inquiry include cross-orientation masking in color vision, fMRI adaptation effects, and the impact of attention on binocular vision dynamics. Notable projects address amblyopia mechanisms, contrast sensitivity deficits, and the role of different visual pathways (parvocellular vs. magnocellular) in perception.

Recent research highlights include uncovering 'coarse-to-fine' temporal dynamics in color representation and demonstrating how monocular attention can shift eye dominance. Her work bridges fundamental neuroscience with clinical applications, such as understanding neuroretinal dysfunction in multiple sclerosis and optimizing contrast sensitivity assessments for clinical use.

No specific awards or grants are listed in the provided materials. Her lab's outputs emphasize methodological innovation in neuroimaging and psychophysics, with a focus on translating findings to improve understanding of visual disorders.