Neural basis of Visual Attention

描述（由申请人提供）：从杂乱的自然环境中选择相关信息进行进一步处理是指导行为的最基本认知能力之一。当注意力选择机制失效时，这一点变得非常明显，比如在患有多动症、中风后经常观察到的视觉空间半忽视和精神分裂症的个体中。来自生理学和脑功能成像研究的证据表明，选择性注意调节了视觉系统内外多个处理阶段的神经活动。这是我们“人类视觉皮层中注意力的机制”（1 RO1-MH64043）的延续项目。在之前的资助期内，研究工作的特点是人类外侧膝状核（LGN）和视觉皮层区域的注意功能。这些研究和其他研究表明，视觉选择性注意可以被认为是一个多层次的选择过程，由大脑皮层下和皮层区域的分布式网络介导。目前的应用扩展了这项工作，以研究视觉系统和额顶叶注意网络之间的神经处理的相互作用，并提出了来自偏见竞争理论的假设。这项研究计划的长期目标是确定灵长类动物大脑中视觉选择性注意的神经机制。我们的实验室采用多模态方法来实现这一目标，包括人类和猴子的功能磁共振成像（fMRI）和行为测量，以及猴子的侵入性电生理学。在目前的应用中，我们专注于使用创新的高分辨率和超分辨率fMRI方法在人脑中运行的注意机制。我们建议研究磁胞和旁胞LGN （sa# 1）的注意调节，感知组织对偏见竞争（sa# 2）的影响，以及跨视觉注意神经结构的高阶选择控制（sa# 3）。本研究旨在促进我们对人脑中调节注意力功能的神经机制和网络结构的理解。了解选择性注意的基本机制是开发有效的注意力缺陷治疗策略的第一步。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The selection of relevant information from cluttered natural environments for further processing is one of the most fundamental cognitive abilities for guiding behavior. This becomes strikingly clear when attentional selection mechanisms fail, such as in individuals afflicted with ADHD, visuo-spatial hemineglect that is often observed following stroke, and schizophrenia. Converging evidence from physiology and functional brain imaging studies reveals that selective attention modulates neural activity at multiple processing stages within the visual system and beyond. This is a continuation project of our grant "Mechanisms of attention in the human visual cortex" (1 RO1-MH64043). Work during the previous funding period has characterized attentional functions of the human lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) and visual cortical areas. These and other studies indicate that visual selective attention can be considered a multilevel selection process mediated by a distributed network of subcortical and cortical brain areas. The present application extends this work to investigate interactions of neural processing between the visual system and the fronto-parietal attention network with hypotheses derived from biased competition theory. The long-term goal of this research program is to identify the neural mechanisms underlying visual selective attention in the primate brain. This goal is pursued in our laboratory in a multi-modal methods approach that includes functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and behavioral measures in humans and monkeys, and invasive electrophysiology in monkeys. In the present application, we focus on attention mechanisms operating in the human brain using innovative high- and super-resolution fMRI methods. We propose to study attentional modulation of the magno- and parvocellular LGN (SA #1), influences of perceptual organization on biased competition (SA #2), and higher-order control of selection (SA #3) across the neural architecture that subserves visual attention. The proposed research is aimed at advancing our understanding of the neural mechanisms and the network architecture that mediates attentional functions in the human brain. Progress in understanding the basic mechanisms of selective attention is a first necessary step in developing effective treatment strategies for attentional deficits.