Adam Sillito, emeritus professor of visual sciences at the Institute of Ophthalmology in London, who has died aged 79, described one of his pastimes in Who’s Who as “dreaming of better things”. A lateral thinker with an eye for the big picture, he conducted research on the mechanics of visual perception that provided vital information for future treatments. As director of the institute from 1991 to 2006, he transformed it from a backwater on the brink of closure into a world-class center of excellence, partnering with Moorfields eye hospital and attracting top scientists from around the world.
In the 1970s Sillito was working as a lecturer at the University of Birmingham and investigating one aspect of the complex process of visual perception. To “see”, neurons must transfer information from the eyes to the visual cortex in the brain, where this information is interpreted as an image. At the time, researchers were mostly interested in how neurotransmitters had an “excitatory” effect on neurons, causing them to fire and transmit information to the next cell.
But Sillito wondered if the opposite happened: Do neurotransmitters stop neurons from firing? In the 70s he conducted a series of experiments that proved this to be the case: Some neurotransmitters do indeed have an inhibitory effect.
This was a fundamental discovery. His colleague Javier Cudeiro said: “Adam showed that the inhibitory component is an essential part of vision as we know it. This represented a paradigm shift in the understanding of how the visual system works, which has proven fundamental to the modern understanding of visual neuroscience.”
In 1982 Sillito became professor of physiology and head of department at Cardiff University. Both there and later in London, he researched an important area of the brain involved in vision, the lateral geniculate nucleus, which he found has a role in inhibition and different functions, including helping us perceive whether something is the focus of an image or an object. showed that he was involved. in the background.
He investigated how vision is affected by what the brain expects to see. Some visions occur through “bottom-up processing”; This means that information comes from the eyes and the brain has no expectations about what it sees. But in “top-down processing,” expectations are formed based on what they can see.
An example of this is addressing passersby with hair or clothing similar to that of a friend you are waiting to arrive. This type of visual processing involves many parts of the brain, and Sillito’s research contributed important observations that opened new avenues of research.
In a 2003 Guardian article titled Our Lie Eyes, Sillito explained that Bridget Riley’s art, with its disorienting optical effects, offers a window into how visual perception works and how “what we see” can be framed according to the brain’s expectations.
In 1987 he was appointed professor of visual sciences at the Institute of Ophthalmology and was tasked with trying to turn the situation around, as this institute was likely to close. The Research Assessment Exercise (now the Research Excellence Framework), which evaluates research in the UK’s higher education institutions, gave it the lowest possible score for having no significant academic output.
A logical and strategic thinker, Sillito knew that if he could recruit good scientists and raise the institute’s academic profile, funds would come and change the institution’s fortunes. He encouraged researchers with “blue sky” thinking, freeing them from teaching or administrative duties and providing attractive conditions such as good salaries and well-resourced laboratories.
He oversaw the institute’s merger with University College London in 1995 and its move to larger premises in Bath Street, adjacent to Moorfields eye hospital, with which it had a close partnership. Funding was secured from the Wellcome Trust, and Sillito persuaded the charity Fight for Sight, which had hitherto supported medical projects, to also support pure research.
All was not well: decision-makers at the university and Moorfields did not always agree with him, but Sillito was determined. The Institute’s score in the Research Assessment Study increased steadily, and by 2008 it was rated “internationally excellent”.
Shortly before his retirement in 2018, his colleague Susan Lightman attended a meeting where staff at the institute talked about their careers. Like many of his British contemporaries, he spent time in the US because it was pioneering visual research at the time, she said. But the final speaker was the institute’s new senior fellow, who said: “I didn’t need to go abroad to be successful.” It was a testament to Sillito’s work at the institute that young academics could now undertake world-class research in the UK.
Sillito was born in Tamworth, Staffordshire, the son of dairy farmer Adam Sillito and his wife Jean (née Onion), who was a secretary for the Milk Marketing Board and kept the family farm accounts. The couple also had two daughters, Margaret and Susan.
From an early age the man was interested in cars and everything mechanical, he was also interested in biology; He kept a variety of pets, including a rescued magpie and jackdaw. He contracted polio when he was six and had to spend two years in hospital, seeing his family only from the other side of a glass screen. The disease left a scar on his right arm and meant he could not start school until he was eight. A voracious reader, he quickly grew up and passed more than 11 exams to attend Burton-on-Trent grammar school. He initially studied medicine at the University of Birmingham but switched to neurophysiology.
After his doctorate, Sillito studied at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in 1970-71. She met physiotherapist Sharon Pascoe when she signed up for a class she taught in Birmingham. She came to the US to be with him, and in 1971 they had what she described as a “hippie wedding” and took a road trip to the west coast and back to celebrate. On their return to the UK, they settled in Birmingham, where Sillito taught at the university and did research.
He retired from UCL in 2014, aged 70. He was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2016, but continued to enjoy a rich cultural life in London, including poetry, chess, music and visits to Seville and Italy.
He is survived by Sharon, her son Rowland, her daughter Francesca, her grandchildren Amelia and Laurie, and her sisters.
• Adam Murdin Sillito, visual neuroscientist, born March 31, 1944; Died December 17, 2023