Cross Region Neural Computation Subserving Attention

描述（由申请人提供）：注意力对我们的意识体验至关重要。未能集中注意力或转移注意力可能是毁灭性的，并可能导致神经和精神疾病，例如注意力缺陷多动障碍（ADHD）、阅读障碍和精神分裂症。Desimone实验室和其他人的实验表明，注意力改变了许多视觉区域的神经活动，并改变了整个大脑区域的活动。越来越多的证据表明，存在自上而下的调节机制介导的注意。然而，这些效应背后的精确神经回路在很大程度上是未知的，并且仍然难以在特定神经回路或细胞类型的活动与紧急行为和病理之间建立因果关系。因此，我将开发用于在灵长类动物大脑中以毫秒时间尺度精确激活和沉默特定类型的神经元的技术的使用，从而对特定前额叶神经活动模式在介导注意力的自上而下控制中的必要性和充分性进行时间分辨分析。在该补助金的指导阶段，罗伯特·德西蒙博士是导师，爱德华·博伊登博士是合作者。Robert Desimone博士是注意力领域的领导者，并建立了许多基本和新颖的概念。Edward Boyden博士是神经技术发展的先驱，他开发了控制神经元的光学方法，并不断提出关于如何设计工具以促进大脑探索的新概念。在此资助的指导阶段，我将继续完善我在实验设计，传导和分析方面的技能，并继续学习如何在密集连接的三维灵长类大脑中操纵特定的神经基质。通过在多个学科之间工作，我将学习对二十一世纪的跨学科工作至关重要的关键沟通和管理技能。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Attention is highly critical to our conscious experience. A failure to focus or to shift attention can be devastating, and may contribute to neurological and psychiatric diseases such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, and schizophrenia. Experiments from the Desimone lab and others have shown that attention alters neural activity in many visual areas and synchronizes activity across brain regions. There is increasing evidence for the presence of top-down modulatory mechanisms mediating attention. However, the precise neural circuitry underlying these effects is largely unknown, and it remains difficult to establish causal links between activities in specific neural circuits or cell types, and emergent behaviors and pathologies. Accordingly, I will develop the use of the technologies for activating and silencing specific types of neurons with millisecond-timescale precision in the primate brain, with which to perform a time- resolved analysis of necessity and sufficiency of specific prefrontal neural activity patterns hi mediating top- down control of attention. During the mentored phase of this grant, Dr. Robert Desimone is the mentor and Dr. Edward Boyden is a collaborator. Dr. Robert Desimone is a leader in the field of attention and has established many of its fundamental and novel concepts. Dr. Edward Boyden is a pioneer in neurotechnology development, having developed optical methods for controlling neurons and is continuously contributing novel concepts about how to engineer tools to facilitate the exploration of the brain. During the mentored phase of this grant, I will continue to perfect my skills in experimental design, conduction and analysis, and continue to learn how to manipulate specific neural substrates in the densely-wired 3-dimensional primate brain. By working between multiple disciplines, I will learn critical communication and management skills important for the interdisciplinary work of the twenty-first century.