CORTICAL CIRCUIT BASIS OF VISUAL SPATIAL PROCESSING

视觉空间处理的皮质电路基础

• 批准号: 7681027
• 负责人: CHRISTOS CONSTANTINIDIS
• 金额: $ 28.4万
• 依托单位: WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-09-01 至 2012-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7681027
• 关键词: Accounting; Appearance; Area; Attention; Behavioral; Biological; Brain Diseases; Brain Injuries; Brain Part; Cerebral cortex; Cognition; Cognitive; Defect; Dimensions; Disease; Dorsal; Electrodes; Goals; Human; Image; Lesion; Location; Mediating; Memory; Mental Processes; Mental disorders; Modality; Modeling; Monkeys; Nature; Neurons; Neurosciences Research; Operative Surgical Procedures; Parietal; Parietal Lobe; Pathway interactions; Pattern; Perception; Physiological; Play; Positioning Attribute; Prefrontal Cortex; Primates; Process; Property; Psyche structure; Reporting; Research; Resistance; Rewards; Role; Sequence Analysis; Series; Signal Transduction; Stimulus; Structure; Testing; Time; Training; Visuospatial; awake; base; cell type; cognitive function; expectation; frontal lobe; insight; neural circuit; neural patterning; neurophysiology; nonhuman primate; public health relevance; relating to nervous system; research study; response; trait; visual stimulus

Description (provided by applicant): Elucidating the biological basis of perception and cognition has been an enduring goal of neuroscience research because it is essential for treating brain disorders that can devastate the ability to think and act. Higher mental processes have traditionally been attributed to the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain most developed in higher primates and humans. In recent years, however, it has become clear that many neural correlates of mental functions are not exclusive traits of the prefrontal cortex but are already evident in the cortical pathways that project to it, for example, the association areas of the temporal and parietal lobes. Uncovering the unique and cooperative roles of these cortical regions is therefore necessary for understanding the biological basis of higher mental functions. Even less is known about how the circuit organization and nature of neural processing differs between high-order cortical areas, so as to account for their distinct functional roles. We propose to use an integrative methodological framework to elucidate the unique and cooperative roles of areas involved with the processing of visual-spatial information. We will comparatively investigate the physiological responses and neural-circuit organization of the dorsal prefrontal and posterior parietal cortex. Our experiments will make use of neurophysiological recordings with arrays of closely-spaced electrodes in monkeys trained to perform visual-spatial tasks. We will examine the patterns of neural responses during the presentation of multiple visual stimuli, concurrently or in sequence, and analyze the functional interactions between neurons. Experiments will specifically test whether prefrontal cortex is characterized by more robust, more widely distributed or dynamically modulated neuronal connectivity, or functionally specialized cell types. These experiments will help unveil the functional specialization of cortical areas involved in higher cognitive functions and offer insights on normal perceptual processing as well as the consequences of brain injury and mental illness. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE Understanding the organization and function of cortical areas mediating higher cognitive processes is key to ameliorating the disorders that can devastate one's ability to think and act. The proposed research will rely on a primate model to determine the role and functional specialization of two areas of the cerebral cortex involved in the processing of visual spatial information, the posterior parietal and dorsal prefrontal cortex.

描述（由申请人提供）：阐明感知和认知的生物学基础一直是神经科学研究的一个持久目标，因为它对于治疗可能损害思考和行动能力的大脑疾病至关重要。传统上认为，高级心理过程是由前额叶皮层（prefrontal cortex）完成的，这是高级灵长类动物和人类大脑中最发达的部分。然而，近年来，我们已经清楚地认识到，许多与心理功能相关的神经元并不是前额叶皮层独有的特征，而是在投射到前额叶皮层的皮层通路中已经很明显了，例如颞叶和顶叶的联合区。因此，揭示这些皮层区域的独特和合作作用对于理解高级心理功能的生物学基础是必要的。至于高阶皮质区之间的神经回路组织和神经处理的性质如何不同，以解释它们独特的功能作用，我们所知更少。我们建议使用一个综合的方法框架来阐明与视觉空间信息的处理所涉及的领域的独特和合作的作用。我们将比较研究背侧前额叶和后顶叶皮质的生理反应和神经回路组织。我们的实验将利用神经生理学记录与密集电极阵列在猴子训练执行视觉空间任务。我们将研究在呈现多种视觉刺激，同时或顺序的神经反应模式，并分析神经元之间的功能相互作用。实验将专门测试前额叶皮层是否具有更强大，分布更广泛或动态调节的神经元连接或功能专门化的细胞类型。这些实验将有助于揭示涉及高级认知功能的皮层区域的功能专业化，并提供有关正常感知处理以及脑损伤和精神疾病后果的见解。公共卫生相关性了解调节高级认知过程的皮层区域的组织和功能是改善可能损害人的思考和行动能力的疾病的关键。拟议的研究将依赖于灵长类动物模型，以确定参与视觉空间信息处理的两个大脑皮层区域的作用和功能专业化，即后顶叶和背侧前额叶皮层。