Top-down attention switches coupling between low-level and high-level areas of human visual cortex
Top-down attention switches coupling between low-level and high-level areas of human visual cortex
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1202095109
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发表时间：
2012-09-04
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Turk-Browne, Nicholas B.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Al-Aidroos, Naseem;Said, Christopher P.;Turk-Browne, Nicholas B.
自上而下的注意力是一种基本的认知能力，它允许我们有限的大脑通过优先考虑与我们目标相关的信息来处理复杂的自然环境。先前的证据表明，自上而下的注意力是通过调节专门用于处理目标相关信息的视觉区域内的刺激诱发的神经活动来运作的。我们发现，自上而下的注意力也有一个单独的影响视觉区域之间的背景耦合：采用不同的注意力目标导致在视觉系统中的噪声相关性的特定模式，从而在同一组低级别区域的内在活动共享只有那些高级别的领域相关的当前目标。这些变化发生独立的诱发活动，持续没有视觉刺激，并预测行为的成功部署注意力比调制诱发活动。这种背景连接的注意力转换表明，注意力可能有助于同步不同层次的视觉处理层次，在人类视觉皮层中形成状态依赖的功能通路，以优先考虑目标相关信息。
Top-down attention is an essential cognitive ability, allowing our finite brains to process complex natural environments by prioritizing information relevant to our goals. Previous evidence suggests that top-down attention operates by modulating stimulus-evoked neural activity within visual areas specialized for processing goal-relevant information. We show that top-down attention also has a separate influence on the background coupling between visual areas: adopting different attentional goals resulted in specific patterns of noise correlations in the visual system, whereby intrinsic activity in the same set of low-level areas was shared with only those high-level areas relevant to the current goal. These changes occurred independently of evoked activity, persisted without visual stimulation, and predicted behavioral success in deploying attention better than the modulation of evoked activity. This attentional switching of background connectivity suggests that attention may help synchronize different levels of the visual processing hierarchy, forming state-dependent functional pathways in human visual cortex to prioritize goal-relevant information.