The attentional modualation of receptive field structures and other sensory properties of area mst of macaque visual cortex

猕猴视觉皮层感受野结构和其他感觉特性的注意力调节

• 批准号: 355456968
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Stefan Treue
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Abteilung Kognitive Neurowissenschaften
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Units
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2016-12-31 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/355456968?language=en
• 关键词: attentional; modualation; receptive; field; structures

In the first funding period we were able to demonstrate a dissociation between sensory pref-erences and attentional modulation in an area of primate visual cortex, by showing for the first time that feature-based attentional modulation does not affect all stimulus parameters a cell in extrastriate cortex (here area MST) is tuned for. This asymmetry between selectivities is complemented by a difference in the behavioural relevance of selectivities that are atten-tionally modulated and those that are not. We consider this evidence that the (not attentional-ly modulated) linear motion selectivity observed in MST is not inherited from area MT but is generated de novo in MST as part of the computation performed in MST to generate the complex spiral motion selectivity in MST. Additionally, our reverse-correlation analysis of MST receptive fields showed complex spatial distributions of direction and speed prefer-ences that would not show up in traditional receptive field mapping approaches.These observations directly lead to our central objective for a second funding period, namely to investigate the interaction of spatial attention with MST receptive field profiles, adapting the reverse-correlation approach developed in the first funding period. This attentional map-ping is flanked by two smaller objectives: Completing our characterization of the linear and nonlinear sensory receptive field characteristics of MSTd neurons (sensory mapping) and a pilot study to investigate the possibility of inhibiting the top-down modulation of MST recep-tive fields from the Frontal Eye Field (FEF), using optogenetic approaches (optogenetic pilot study).Our aim for the end of the second funding period is to have substantially advanced, not only our knowledge of (linear and non-linear) sensory properties of MSTd neurons, but also of how various forms of (top-down, spatial, object-based) attention reshape MSTd selectivity, mediated by inter-areal communication with the FEF.

在第一个资助期，我们通过首次显示基于特征的注意调节并不影响脑外皮层（这里是MST区域）的所有刺激参数，证明了灵长类视觉皮层区域的感觉偏好和注意调节之间的分离。这种选择性之间的不对称被注意调节和不注意调节的选择性的行为相关性的差异所补充。我们认为这一证据表明，在MST中观察到的（非注意调制的）线性运动选择性不是从区域MT继承的，而是在MST中重新生成的，作为MST中执行的计算的一部分，以生成MST中复杂的螺旋运动选择性。此外，我们对MST感受野的反向相关分析显示，方向和速度偏好的复杂空间分布在传统的感受野映射方法中不会出现。这些观察结果直接导致了我们第二个资助期的中心目标，即采用第一个资助期开发的反向相关方法，研究空间注意力与MST接受野剖面的相互作用。这种注意力定位有两个更小的目标：完成我们对MSTd神经元的线性和非线性感觉接受野特征的表征（感觉定位），以及利用光遗传学方法研究抑制额眼场（FEF）自上而下调节MST接受野的可能性（光遗传学试点研究）。我们的目标是在第二个资助期结束时取得实质性的进展，不仅是我们对MSTd神经元的（线性和非线性）感觉特性的了解，而且是通过与FEF的区域间交流，各种形式的（自上而下的，空间的，基于对象的）注意如何重塑MSTd选择性。