Signaling of the strongest stimulus in the owl optic tectum.
Signaling of the strongest stimulus in the owl optic tectum.
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DOI：
10.1523/jneurosci.4592-10.2011
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发表时间：
2011-04-06
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影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Knudsen EI
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Mysore SP;Asadollahi A;Knudsen EI
选择下一个凝视或注意力目标的关键是能够比较多种竞争刺激（自下而上的信息）的强度，并发出最强刺激的信号。尽管视顶盖 (OT) 与刺激选择有因果关系，但它如何计算最强的刺激尚不清楚。在这里，我们证明仓鸮中的 OT 神经元系统地编码同时发生的刺激的相对强度，与感觉方式无关。此外，当一组神经元的感受野内的刺激变得最强时，其特殊的“类似开关”的反应会突然增加。这种反应不是通过对单一刺激的反应来预测的，实际上，在没有竞争性相互作用的情况下会被消除。我们证明，这种感觉转变通过创建二元辨别信号极大地增强了最强刺激的表征，从而为凝视和注意力的潜在赢家通吃目标选择奠定了基础。
Essential to the selection of the next target for gaze or attention is the ability to compare the strengths of multiple competing stimuli (bottom-up information), and to signal the strongest one. Though the optic tectum (OT) has been causally implicated in stimulus selection, how it computes the strongest stimulus is unknown. Here, we demonstrate that OT neurons in the barn owl systematically encode the relative strengths of simultaneously occurring stimuli independently of sensory modality. Moreover, special “switch-like” responses of a subset of neurons abruptly increase when the stimulus inside their receptive field becomes the strongest one. Such responses are not predicted by responses to single stimuli and, indeed, are eliminated in the absence of competitive interactions. We demonstrate that this sensory transformation substantially boosts the representation of the strongest stimulus by creating a binary discrimination signal, thereby setting the stage for potential winner-take-all target selection for gaze and attention.