Using marmosets to study the cognitive control of joint attention

拟议的项目试图解开联合注意和上下文依赖控制的神经基础，利用平坦的绒猴皮层的优势，便于使用ECoG网格记录的局部场电位活动（lfp）从大脑皮层的扩展部分。工作假设建立在申请人对人类和非人类灵长类动物联合注意力控制的初步研究基础上，并将在被训练参与利用动物建立联合注意力及其执行控制能力的范式的绒猴中进行测试。它假定，注意力的转移，促使其他的目光对一个对象的联合注意力是神经相互作用的结果，在不同的lfp频带的额颞顶叶网络，涉及几个枢纽与特定的功能：外侧顶内区（LIP）被假定为代表网络输出水平负责释放的注意力转移到感兴趣的对象的位置，以其他。相关位置由LIP中的视觉环境的显著性图中的峰值来识别，该显著性图是撞击在LIP上的两个输入的会聚的结果，关于从颞叶皮层中的注视跟随块导出的另一个注视向量的方向的信息以及来自下额叶接合区的输入，后者需要将相关对象的位置与可能被相同注视向量击中的干扰对象的位置区分开。相关空间位置和对象的信息，因为它被认为是由LIP中的活动同步和颞下皮层中的对象特征的表示所约束的。最后，信息的执行控制观察者的注意力转移到联合注意的对象被认为是从前额叶皮层。

The proposed project tries to unravel the neural underpinnings of joint attention and its context dependent control exploiting the advantages of the flat marmoset cortex that facilitates the usage of ECoG grids for the recording of local field potential activity (lfp) from extended parts of cerebral cortex. The working hypothesis builds on the applicant’s preliminary work on the control of joint attention in human and nonhuman primates and will be tested in marmosets trained to participate in paradigms that tap the animals´ ability to establish joint attention and its executive control. It posits that shifts of attention prompted by the other’s gaze towards an object of joint attention are a consequence of neural interactions in distinct lfp frequency bands in a fronto-temporo-parietal network that involves several hubs with specific functions: the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) is assumed to represent the network output level responsible for releasing a shift of attention to the location of the object of interest to the other. The relevant location is identified by a peak in a salience map of the visual environment in LIP that is the resultant of the convergence of two inputs impinging on LIP, information on the direction of the other’s gaze vector derived from the gaze following patch in temporal cortex and input from the inferior frontal junction area, the latter needed to distinguish the position of the relevant object from the position of distractor objects that may be hit by the same gaze vector. Information on the relevant spatial location and the object as it is thought to be bound by synchronization of activity in LIP and a representation of object features in inferotemporal cortex. Finally, information for the executive control of the observer’s shift of attention towards the object of joint attention is assumed to be drawn from prefrontal cortex.