Jack Pettigrew
John Douglas "Jack" Pettigrew was an Australian neuroscientist. He was Emeritus Professor of Physiology and Director of the Vision, Touch and [Hearing Research Centre] at the University of Queensland in Australia.
Research
Pettigrew's research interest was in comparative neuroscience. He studied a variety of different birds and mammals with modern neuronal tracing techniques to unravel principles of brain organisation. He was the chief proponent of the flying primate hypothesis, which was based on the similarity between the brains of megabats and primates. Special emphasis was placed on the visual, auditory and somatosensory systems.Pettigrew was the first person to clarify the neurobiological basis of stereopsis when he described neurones sensitive to binocular disparity. Later, he discovered that owls have independently evolved a system of binocular neurones like those found in mammals.
Pettigrew showed evidence for a role for non-visual pathways in the phenomenon of developmental neuroplasticity during the postnatal critical period.
Pettigrew used binocular rivalry as an assay for interhemispheric switching, whose rhythm is altered in bipolar disorder.