Diencephalic Mechanisms of Visuomotor Integration

描述（由申请人提供）：在一个典型的视觉场景中，关于在哪里看的决定取决于个体刺激和当前行为目标的相对显著性。迄今为止，大多数研究视觉定向的认知控制的目标是额叶皮层。然而，越来越多的证据表明，与工作记忆和决策相关的信号严重依赖于额叶皮层和皮质下结构（如基底神经节、小脑和丘脑）之间的相互作用。丘脑是这些皮质下结构中唯一的;除了提供直接输入到皮质，其组成核介导基底神经节和小脑对各自的皮质目标的影响。尽管它的关键解剖位置，几乎没有什么是已知的性质的信息表示在中央丘脑。目前的实验旨在充分表征与产生视觉引导的扫视眼球运动相关的认知因素的中央丘脑表征。拟议的研究将是第一个检查中央丘脑核团的潜在重要性，以及它们介导的皮质下-皮质相互作用，对目标导向的扫视眼球运动的认知控制。在这样做的过程中，这些实验将有助于确定视觉认知的基本神经基质。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Decisions about where to look within a typical visual scene are governed by the relative salience of individual stimuli and current behavioral objectives. To date, the majority of studies examining the cognitive control of visual orienting have targeted frontal cortex. However, there is growing evidence to suggest that signals related to working memory and decision-making are critically dependent on interactions between frontal cortex and subcortical structures such as the basal ganglia, cerebellum, and thalamus. Thalamus is unique among these subcortical structures; in addition to providing direct input to cortex, its constituent nuclei mediate the influences of both the basal ganglia and cerebellum on their respective cortical targets. Despite its critical anatomical position, virtually nothing is known about the nature of the information represented in central thalamus. The current experiments seek to fully characterize the central thalamic representations of cognitive factors relevant for producing visually-guided saccadic eye movements. The proposed studies will be the first to examine the potential importance of central thalamic nuclei, and the subcortical-cortical interactions they mediate, to the cognitive control of goal-directed saccadic eye movements. In doing so, these experiments will help to define the essential neural substrates for visuomotor cognition.