VIP interneuron circuits as a mechanism for attentional selection in mouse somatosensory cortex

项目总结 选择性注意是一种神经生物学过程，它允许动物优先考虑与行为相关的行为 感知的刺激物。人类、非人灵长类和其他脊椎动物自愿地关注 增强视觉、听觉和触觉系统对注意到的刺激特征的感知。选择性注意 降低注意刺激的感知阈值，提高神经编码的信噪比 刺激物。调节选择性注意的局部大脑回路还没有被很好地理解。一位候选人 机制是感觉皮层自上而下的门控去抑制，它增强了对注意到的感觉反应 锥体细胞(PYR)的感觉特征，从而优先处理它们。血管活性肠多肽 (VIP)神经元间回路被认为是这种去抑制的中介，但到目前为止还只涉及到 大体上是唤醒，而不是选择性的注意。我们将测量PYR和VIP神经元的神经活动。 执行注意任务的行为小鼠的躯体感觉皮层(S1)，以确定是否提示注意 增强S1感觉表征，以及这是否涉及VIP细胞的激活。我们将单独测试 自上而下的线索是否能驱动注意的时间焦点(“立即注意”)和空间注意焦点(“注意 这些实验将使我们能够确定VIP细胞回路是否参与了内源性自上而下 注意，并定义VIP电路激活的空间精度，目前尚不清楚。后续 这项工作将因果地测试VIP电路在选择性注意中的作用，识别VIP细胞的远程输入，以及 确定驱动注意效应的VIP细胞下游的局部电路。

PROJECT SUMMARY Selective attention is a neurobiological process that allows animals to prioritize behaviorally relevant stimuli for perception. Humans, non-human primates and other vertebrates engage attention voluntarily to enhance perception of attended stimulus features in visual, auditory and tactile systems. Selective attention lowers perceptual thresholds for attended stimuli and enhances signal-to-noise ratio for neural coding of those stimuli. The local brain circuits that mediate selective attention are not well understood. One candidate mechanism is top-down gated disinhibition in sensory cortex, which boosts sensory responses to attended sensory features in pyramidal cells (PYR), thus prioritizing their processing. Vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP) interneuron circuits have been suggested to mediate this disinhibition, but have so far been implicated only in general arousal, not selective attention. We will measure neural activity of PYR and VIP neurons in somatosensory cortex (S1) of behaving mice performing an attention task, to determine whether cued attention enhances S1 sensory representations, and whether this involves activation of VIP cells. We will separately test whether top-down cues can drive temporal focus of attention ("attend now") and spatial focus of attention ("attend here"). These experiments will allow us to determine if VIP cell circuits are involved in endogenous top-down attention, and to define the spatial precision of VIP circuit activation, which is currently unknown. Subsequent work will causally test the role of VIP circuits in selective attention, identify long-range inputs to VIP cells, and determine the local circuits downstream of VIP cells that drive attentional effects.