{"publication_identifier":{"issn":["2663-337X"],"isbn":["978-3-99078-050-3"]},"year":"2024","date_updated":"2026-01-30T10:17:59Z","file_date_updated":"2025-11-11T23:30:02Z","oa_version":"Published Version","article_processing_charge":"No","publisher":"Institute of Science and Technology Austria","day":"22","degree_awarded":"PhD","corr_author":"1","publication_status":"published","status":"public","month":"11","doi":"10.15479/at:ista:18574","language":[{"iso":"eng"}],"user_id":"8b945eb4-e2f2-11eb-945a-df72226e66a9","abstract":[{"text":"Biological vision is unlike a camera; rather than transmitting light information faithfully, early\r\nvisual circuits process the visual scene to convey only the relevant information in an efficient\r\nmanner. Consequentially, the nature of this visual processing then depends on what is the\r\nrelevant information in a scene and on the notion of efficiency. In this work, I study how visual\r\nprocessing is modulated by two different variations in the visual scene. First, I discovered that\r\nin the mouse (Mus musculus) retina, Retinal Ganglion Cells in the upper and lower visual\r\nfield have differences in the center surround structure of their receptive fields. Comparison\r\nwith models of efficient coding show that this adaptation likely evolved to cope with the\r\nbrightness gradient from the sky to the ground that is pervasive in natural scenes. In the\r\nsecond project, I study how the downstream neurons in the Superior Colliculus dynamically\r\nchange their temporal selectivity depending on the ambient luminance and behavioral state.\r\nAs the scene gets darker or when the animal is is less aroused, the neuronal responses get\r\nlaggier, while still maintaining their relative timing with respect to the population. Overall, this\r\nwork emphasises the need to understand visual processing in the context of specific demands\r\nof the animal in its the environment. The adaptive changes in the visual system, from the\r\nretinal ganglion cells to the superior colliculus, highlight the intricate ways in which biological\r\nvision optimizes the processing of visual information.\r\n","lang":"eng"}],"file":[{"access_level":"closed","embargo_to":"open_access","relation":"source_file","file_size":75512262,"creator":"dgupta","date_updated":"2025-11-11T23:30:02Z","checksum":"ebb000d361c36b22ed6e639a931c6b7c","file_id":"18589","file_name":"PhD Thesis - Divyansh Gupta.zip","date_created":"2024-11-25T14:44:03Z","content_type":"application/zip"},{"date_updated":"2025-11-11T23:30:02Z","checksum":"1282401eb71598bc311058b0fcefc6a1","embargo":"2025-11-11","file_id":"18591","file_name":"PDFA_PhD_Thesis___Divyansh_Gupta-26_11_24.pdf","content_type":"application/pdf","date_created":"2024-11-26T11:43:19Z","access_level":"open_access","file_size":6412619,"creator":"dgupta","relation":"main_file"}],"OA_embargo":"12","OA_place":"repository","acknowledged_ssus":[{"_id":"Bio"},{"_id":"ScienComp"},{"_id":"PreCl"},{"_id":"LifeSc"},{"_id":"M-Shop"},{"_id":"E-Lib"}],"citation":{"mla":"Gupta, Divyansh. <i>Visual Adaptations to Natural Statistics</i>. Institute of Science and Technology Austria, 2024, doi:<a href=\"https://doi.org/10.15479/at:ista:18574\">10.15479/at:ista:18574</a>.","apa":"Gupta, D. (2024). <i>Visual adaptations to natural statistics</i>. Institute of Science and Technology Austria. <a href=\"https://doi.org/10.15479/at:ista:18574\">https://doi.org/10.15479/at:ista:18574</a>","ieee":"D. Gupta, “Visual adaptations to natural statistics,” Institute of Science and Technology Austria, 2024.","ista":"Gupta D. 2024. Visual adaptations to natural statistics. Institute of Science and Technology Austria.","ama":"Gupta D. Visual adaptations to natural statistics. 2024. doi:<a href=\"https://doi.org/10.15479/at:ista:18574\">10.15479/at:ista:18574</a>","short":"D. Gupta, Visual Adaptations to Natural Statistics, Institute of Science and Technology Austria, 2024.","chicago":"Gupta, Divyansh. “Visual Adaptations to Natural Statistics.” Institute of Science and Technology Austria, 2024. <a href=\"https://doi.org/10.15479/at:ista:18574\">https://doi.org/10.15479/at:ista:18574</a>."},"department":[{"_id":"GradSch"},{"_id":"MaJö"}],"supervisor":[{"last_name":"Jösch","orcid":"0000-0002-3937-1330","first_name":"Maximilian A","id":"2BD278E6-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87","full_name":"Jösch, Maximilian A"}],"date_published":"2024-11-22T00:00:00Z","author":[{"orcid":"0000-0001-7400-6665","last_name":"Gupta","first_name":"Divyansh","id":"2A485EBE-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87","full_name":"Gupta, Divyansh"}],"project":[{"name":"Action Selection in the Midbrain: Neuromodulation of Visuomotor Senses","_id":"bdaf81a8-d553-11ed-ba76-c95961984540","grant_number":"101086580"},{"call_identifier":"H2020","grant_number":"665385","name":"International IST Doctoral Program","_id":"2564DBCA-B435-11E9-9278-68D0E5697425"},{"call_identifier":"H2020","grant_number":"756502","name":"Circuits of Visual Attention","_id":"2634E9D2-B435-11E9-9278-68D0E5697425"}],"title":"Visual adaptations to natural statistics","acknowledgement":"This work would have been impossible without the Scientific Service Units of IST Austria. The resources and expertise provided by Scientific Computing (especially Alois Schlögl), the MIBA Machine Shop (especially Todor Asenov), the Preclinical Facility (especially Freyja Langer), the Library, the Lab Support Facility and the Imaging and Optics Facility were the essential bedrock I could build upon. I would also like to thank IT support at ISTA for powering through remote work and a cyberattack.\r\nI am grateful for having been funded initially by the European Union Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant 665385 and later by Prof. Maximilian Joesch's the European Research Council Starting (756502) and Consolidator (101086580) Grants.","_id":"18574","alternative_title":["ISTA Thesis"],"tmp":{"short":"CC BY-NC-SA (4.0)","legal_code_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode","image":"/images/cc_by_nc_sa.png","name":"Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)"},"has_accepted_license":"1","page":"86","type":"dissertation","date_created":"2024-11-20T21:30:44Z","oa":1,"license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/","related_material":{"record":[{"status":"public","relation":"part_of_dissertation","id":"12349"},{"status":"public","id":"12370","relation":"research_data"}]},"ddc":["573"],"ec_funded":1}