Neuronal mechanisms of attention-dependent bahavioral performance: On the interaction of the fine temporal structure of neuronal activity, neuronal variability and latency, and reaction times

选择性视觉注意调节早期视觉皮层单个神经元的活动，并在行为水平上导致视觉辨别能力的增强和反应时间的缩短。然而，只有很少的研究直接调查了在单细胞水平或群体水平上观察到的特定注意依赖性神经元调节是否以及如何与实验观察到的行为改善相关。最近，我们已经证明，在注意力的影响下，加速的反应时间与减少的神经元潜伏期密切相关。基于这一发现，研究反应延迟减少的特定神经元机制是很重要的。我们假设潜伏期的减少是由于神经元同步性的增加和神经元变异性的减少的相互作用，从而影响反应时间。为了研究这个问题，我们计划在猕猴V1和MT区域进行多电极记录，以阐明注意依赖调节的区域间和区域内动态，以及它们对神经元潜伏期的影响。为此，我们利用了一个实验范式，允许空间注意力和任务相关活动的控制。

Selective visual attention modulates the activity of single neurons in early visual cortex and leads, on a behavioural level, to enhanced performance in visual discriminability and to reduced reaction times. However, only a very few studies directly investigated whether and how the specific attention-dependent neuronal modulations observed on the level of single cells, or at the population level, relate to the experimentally observed behavioural improvements. Recently, we have shown that under the influence of attention accelerated reaction times are strongly correlated with reduced neuronal latencies. Based on this finding, it is important to investigate the specific neuronal mechanisms underlying the reduction in response latency. We hypothesize that reductions in latency are due to the interaction of increases in neuronal synchronisation and reductions in neuronal variability, thereby influencing reaction time. To investigate this issue, we plan to perform multi-electrode recordings in macaque areas V1 and MT to clarify the inter- and intraareal dynamics of attention-dependent modulations with respect to their impact on neuronal latencies. For this, we utilize an experimental paradigm allowing for both the control of spatial attention and task-related activity.