ABOUT ME:

I am a neurobiologist interested in the visual system neuroplasticity processes occurring during the early development and upon injury. From the transdisciplinary perspective I am interested in the cultural and environmental impact on visual perception and in the comparative intra-species behavioral studies. At present I am a co-promotor at the PhD project at the Warsaw University exploring the impact of enrichment on welfare of corvids rehabilitated in bird shelters.

RESEARCH INTERESTS:

Currently, we look for the possibility of cortical areas driven by central retina to allocate their properties to the peripheral counterpart. As we demonstrated in our recent animal model of human central retinal loss, the plasticity of the peripheries was observed after central retinal loss. Therefore, we plan to compare reorganizations triggered by juvenile central loss of photoreceptors in patients with Stargardt disease with matched onset of illness and duration to our Retinitis Pigmentosa patient group with degeneration of peripheral parts of retina. Brain region activations during presentation of visual stimuli will be examined with fMRI under control of eye-tracker Eylink 1000 system. We shall also investigate the structure of white matter connections between visual regions of the brain and measure the volume of brain regions involved in vision.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

1: Kozak A, Wieteska M, Ninghetto M, Szulborski K, Gałecki T, Szaflik J, Burnat K. Motion-Based Acuity Task: Full Visual Field Measurement of Shape and Motion Perception. Transl Vis Sci Technol. 2021 Jan 6;10(1):9. doi: 10.1167/tvst.10.1.9. PMID: 33505776; PMCID: PMC7794260.

2: Burnat K, Hu TT, Kossut M, Eysel UT, Arckens L. Plasticity Beyond V1: Reinforcement of Motion Perception upon Binocular Central Retinal Lesions in Adulthood. J Neurosci. 2017 Sep 13;37(37):8989-8999. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1231-17.2017. Epub 2017 Aug 16. PMID: 28821647; PMCID: PMC6596799.

3: Burnat K. Are visual peripheries forever young? Neural Plast. 2015;2015:307929. doi: 10.1155/2015/307929. Epub 2015 Apr 6. PMID: 25945262; PMCID: PMC4402573.

FUNDING:

National Science Centre, NATO post-doc scholarship