Interaction of Visual and Oculomotor Signals in Cortex

皮层视觉和动眼神经信号的相互作用

• 批准号: 6824848
• 负责人: TIRIN MOORE
• 金额: $ 35.95万
• 依托单位: STANFORD UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2004
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2004-09-20 至 2009-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6824848
• 关键词: Macaca fascicularis; Macaca mulatta; attention; behavior test; brain electrical activity; neural information processing; neuropsychology; neuroregulation; psychomotor function; saccades; visual cortex; visual pathways; visual perception; visual stimulus; visual threshold; visual tracking

Visual spatial attention is a critical mental operation that allows us to selectively process only relevant information in the face of an overabundance of visual input. Understanding the underlying neural mechanisms of this phenomenon is central to our understanding of the neural basis of cognition and central to any hope of ameliorating disorders of attention in human patients. Ours and other recent work suggests that better knowledge of the interplay between visual and oculomotor mechanisms may be the key to establishing a causal neural basis of spatial attention. Thus, the long-term goal of this proposal is to understand the reciprocal interactions between oculomotor and vision mechanisms in the primate brain. This goal will be pursued via the following three aims: Our first aim is to test the causal role of frontal cortical saccade mechanisms in directinq covert spatial attention and in drivinq selection in visual cortex. Neuronal activity within the frontal eye field (FEF) will be inactivated pharmacologically and we will examine the effect of this on the ability of monkeys to voluntarily direct attention covertly to the affected part of space, and on the degree to which the widely observed neural correlates of attention in extrastriate area V4 are eliminated. Our second aim is to compare the changes in visual qain observed in extrastriate cortex during FEF microstimulation with the known effects of covert spatial attention. We will examine how the changes in V4 responses caused by subthreshold FEF microstimulation in passively fixating monkeys parallel the modulations observed in animals trained to direct covert attention voluntarily. Our third aim is to examine the relationship between the probability that a saccade will be made to a visual stimulus and the gain of visual cortical responses to that stimulus. We will directly manipulate saccade probability by systematically varying the parameters of FEF microstimulation and study the effect of this manipulation on the gain of visual responses in area V4. This research may provide insight into the physiological basis of disorders of attention in humans, which affect up to 5% of children in the U.S, and may also provide insight into problems of visual-oculomotor coordination, such as dyslexia, which affects approximately 10% of U.S. citizens.

视觉空间注意力是一种关键的心理操作，它使我们能够在面对过多的视觉输入时选择性地仅处理相关信息。了解这种现象的潜在神经机制对于我们理解认知的神经基础至关重要，也是改善人类患者注意力障碍的希望的核心。我们和其他最近的工作表明，更好地了解视觉和动眼神经机制之间的相互作用可能是建立空间注意力的因果神经基础的关键。因此，该提案的长期目标是了解灵长类动物大脑中动眼神经和视觉机制之间的相互作用。这一目标将通过以下三个目标来实现：我们的第一个目标是测试额叶皮层扫视机制在指导隐蔽空间注意力和视觉皮层驱动选择中的因果作用。额叶眼区 (FEF) 内的神经元活动将在药理学上失活，我们将检查这对猴子自愿秘密地将注意力转移到受影响的空间部分的能力的影响，以及对在纹外区域 V4 中广泛观察到的注意力神经相关性被消除的程度的影响。我们的第二个目标是将 FEF 微刺激期间纹状外皮质中观察到的视觉 qain 变化与已知的隐蔽空间注意效应进行比较。我们将研究在被动注视猴子中由阈下 FEF 微刺激引起的 V4 反应的变化如何与在经过训练以自愿引导隐蔽注意力的动物中观察到的调节相似。我们的第三个目标是检查对视觉刺激进行扫视的概率与视觉皮层对该刺激的反应增益之间的关系。我们将通过系统地改变 FEF 微刺激的参数来直接操纵眼跳概率，并研究 这种操纵对 V4 区域视觉反应的增益。这项研究可以深入了解人类注意力障碍的生理基础，这种障碍影响着美国高达 5% 的儿童，并且还可以深入了解视觉动眼神经问题 协调性，例如阅读障碍，影响了大约 10% 的美国公民。