Feature-based gating of cortical information transmission

In highly developed visual systems, spatial- and feature-based attentional modulation interact to prioritize relevant information and suppress irrelevant details. We investigated the specific role and integration of these two attentional mechanisms in visual cortical area MST of rhesus monkeys. We show that spatial attention acts as a gate for information processing by providing unimpeded high-gain pass-through processing for all sensory information from attended visual locations. Feature-based attentional enhancement does not only show the known dependency on a match between the attended feature and a given cells selectivity, but surprisingly is restricted to those features for which a given cell contributes to perception. This necessitates a refinement of the feature-similarity gain model of attention and documents highly optimized attentional gating of sensory information for cortical processing. This gating is shaped by neuronal sensory preferences, behavioral relevance, and the causal link to perception of neurons that process this visual input.

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Neural Mechanisms of Spatial Attention in the Visual Thalamus

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199675111.013.013 ◽

2014 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Yuri B. Saalmann ◽

Sabine Kastner

Keyword(s):

Selective Attention ◽

Visual Information ◽

Thalamic Nucleus ◽

Sensory Information ◽

Relevant Information ◽

Neural Mechanisms ◽

First Order ◽

Visual Thalamus ◽

Cortical Areas ◽

Visual Cortical

Neural mechanisms of selective attention route behaviourally relevant information through brain networks for detailed processing. These attention mechanisms are classically viewed as being solely implemented in the cortex, relegating the thalamus to a passive relay of sensory information. However, this passive view of the thalamus is being revised in light of recent studies supporting an important role for the thalamus in selective attention. Evidence suggests that the first-order thalamic nucleus, the lateral geniculate nucleus, regulates the visual information transmitted from the retina to visual cortex, while the higher-order thalamic nucleus, the pulvinar, regulates information transmission between visual cortical areas, according to attentional demands. This chapter discusses how modulation of thalamic responses, switching the response mode of thalamic neurons, and changes in neural synchrony across thalamo-cortical networks contribute to selective attention.

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Pulvinar influences parietal delay activity and information transmission between dorsal and ventral visual cortex in macaques

10.1101/405381 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Yuri B. Saalmann ◽

Ryan Ly ◽

Mark A. Pinsk ◽

Sabine Kastner

Keyword(s):

Visual Cortex ◽

Selective Attention ◽

Information Transmission ◽

Parietal Cortex ◽

Sensory Information ◽

Relevant Information ◽

Attention Task ◽

Sustained Activity ◽

Cortical Areas ◽

Visual Cortical

AbstractThe fronto-parietal attention network represents attentional priorities and provides feedback about these priorities to sensory cortical areas. Sustained spiking activity in the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) carries such prioritized information, but how this activity is sustained in the absence of feedforward sensory information, and how it is transmitted to the ventral visual cortical pathway, is unclear. We hypothesized that the higher-order thalamic nucleus, the pulvinar, which is connected with both the PPC and ventral visual cortical pathway, influences information transmission within and between these cortical regions. To test this, we simultaneously recorded from the pulvinar, lateral intraparietal area (LIP) and visual cortical area V4 in macaques performing a selective attention task. Here we show that LIP influenced V4 during the delay period of the attention task, and that the pulvinar regulated LIP-V4 information exchange. Pulvino-cortical effects were consistent with the pulvinar supporting sustained activity in LIP. Taken together, these results suggest that pulvinar regulation of cortical functional connectivity generalizes to dorsal and ventral visual cortical pathways. Further, the pulvinar’s role in sustaining parietal delay activity during selective attention implicates the pulvinar in other cognitive processes supported by such delay activity, including decision-making, categorization and oculomotor functions.Significance StatementA network of areas on the brain’s surface, in frontal and parietal cortex, allocate attention to behaviorally relevant information around us. Such areas in parietal cortex show sustained activity during maintained attention and transmit behaviorally relevant information to visual cortical areas to enhance sensory processing of attended objects. How this activity is sustained and how it is transmitted to visual areas supporting object perception is unclear. We show that a subcortical area, the pulvinar in the thalamus, helps sustain activity in the cortex and regulates the information transmitted between the fronto-parietal attention network and visual cortex. This suggests that the thalamus, classically considered as a simple relay for sensory information, contributes to higher-level cognitive functions.

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Ultrastructure of developing visual cortical synapses in the cat superior colliculus

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100085083 ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 49 ◽

pp. 156-157

Author(s):

Caroline A. Miller ◽

Laura L. Bruce

Keyword(s):

Superior Colliculus ◽

Phosphate Buffer ◽

Receptive Fields ◽

Visual Cortical Area ◽

Cortical Synapses ◽

Visual Cortical ◽

And Function ◽

Phosphate Buffered Saline ◽

The Brain ◽

Cat Superior Colliculus

The first visual cortical axons arrive in the cat superior colliculus by the time of birth. Adultlike receptive fields develop slowly over several weeks following birth. The developing cortical axons go through a sequence of changes before acquiring their adultlike morphology and function. To determine how these axons interact with neurons in the colliculus, cortico-collicular axons were labeled with biocytin (an anterograde neuronal tracer) and studied with electron microscopy.Deeply anesthetized animals received 200-500 nl injections of biocytin (Sigma; 5% in phosphate buffer) in the lateral suprasylvian visual cortical area. After a 24 hr survival time, the animals were deeply anesthetized and perfused with 0.9% phosphate buffered saline followed by fixation with a solution of 1.25% glutaraldehyde and 1.0% paraformaldehyde in 0.1M phosphate buffer. The brain was sectioned transversely on a vibratome at 50 μm. The tissue was processed immediately to visualize the biocytin.

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Pulvino-cortical interaction: an integrative role in the control of attention

10.31234/osf.io/g4fn7 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Alexia Bourgeois ◽

Carole Guedj ◽

Emmanuel Carrera ◽

Patrik Vuilleumier

Keyword(s):

Executive Control ◽

Sensory Information ◽

Relevant Information ◽

Cortical Circuits ◽

Attention And Executive Control ◽

Neural Communication ◽

Subcortical Regions ◽

Theoretical Proposal ◽

Selection Of

Selective attention is a fundamental cognitive function that guides behavior by selecting and prioritizing salient or relevant sensory information of our environment. Despite early evidence and theoretical proposal pointing to an implication of thalamic control in attention, most studies in the past two decades focused on cortical substrates, largely ignoring the contribution of subcortical regions as well as cortico-subcortical interactions. Here, we suggest a key role of the pulvinar in the selection of salient and relevant information via its involvement in priority maps computation. Prioritization may be achieved through a pulvinar- mediated generation of alpha oscillations, which may then modulate neuronal gain in thalamo-cortical circuits. Such mechanism might orchestrate the synchrony of cortico-cortical interaction, by rendering neural communication more effective, precise and selective. We propose that this theoretical framework will support a timely shift from the prevailing cortico- centric view of cognition to a more integrative perspective of thalamic contributions to attention and executive control processes.

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Decision-related feedback in visual cortex lacks spatial selectivity

Nature Communications ◽

10.1038/s41467-021-24629-0 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Katrina R. Quinn ◽

Lenka Seillier ◽

Daniel A. Butts ◽

Hendrikje Nienborg

Keyword(s):

Contextual Information ◽

Relevant Information ◽

Common Mechanism ◽

Spatial Selectivity ◽

Population Responses ◽

Stimulus Choice ◽

Visual Areas ◽

Computational Work ◽

Feature Based ◽

The Brain

AbstractFeedback in the brain is thought to convey contextual information that underlies our flexibility to perform different tasks. Empirical and computational work on the visual system suggests this is achieved by targeting task-relevant neuronal subpopulations. We combine two tasks, each resulting in selective modulation by feedback, to test whether the feedback reflected the combination of both selectivities. We used visual feature-discrimination specified at one of two possible locations and uncoupled the decision formation from motor plans to report it, while recording in macaque mid-level visual areas. Here we show that although the behavior is spatially selective, using only task-relevant information, modulation by decision-related feedback is spatially unselective. Population responses reveal similar stimulus-choice alignments irrespective of stimulus relevance. The results suggest a common mechanism across tasks, independent of the spatial selectivity these tasks demand. This may reflect biological constraints and facilitate generalization across tasks. Our findings also support a previously hypothesized link between feature-based attention and decision-related activity.

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Linking sensory neurons to visually guided behavior: Relating MST activity to steering in a virtual environment

Visual Neuroscience ◽

10.1017/s0952523813000412 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 30 (5-6) ◽

pp. 315-330 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

SETH W. EGGER ◽

KENNETH H. BRITTEN

Keyword(s):

Cortical Neurons ◽

Traditional Approach ◽

Sensory System ◽

Sensory Information ◽

Neuronal Population ◽

Difficult Problem ◽

Lower Envelope ◽

Visually Guided ◽

Medial Superior Temporal ◽

Visual Cortical

AbstractMany complex behaviors rely on guidance from sensations. To perform these behaviors, the motor system must decode information relevant to the task from the sensory system. However, identifying the neurons responsible for encoding the appropriate sensory information remains a difficult problem for neurophysiologists. A key step toward identifying candidate systems is finding neurons or groups of neurons capable of representing the stimuli adequately to support behavior. A traditional approach involves quantitatively measuring the performance of single neurons and comparing this to the performance of the animal. One of the strongest pieces of evidence in support of a neuronal population being involved in a behavioral task comes from the signals being sufficient to support behavior. Numerous experiments using perceptual decision tasks show that visual cortical neurons in many areas have this property. However, most visually guided behaviors are not categorical but continuous and dynamic. In this article, we review the concept of sufficiency and the tools used to measure neural and behavioral performance. We show how concepts from information theory can be used to measure the ongoing performance of both neurons and animal behavior. Finally, we apply these tools to dorsal medial superior temporal (MSTd) neurons and demonstrate that these neurons can represent stimuli important to navigation to a distant goal. We find that MSTd neurons represent ongoing steering error in a virtual-reality steering task. Although most individual neurons were insufficient to support the behavior, some very nearly matched the animal’s estimation performance. These results are consistent with many results from perceptual experiments and in line with the predictions of Mountcastle’s “lower envelope principle.”

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The Feature Similarity Gain Model of Attention: Unifying Multiplicative Effects of Spatial and Feature-based Attention

Neurobiology of Attention ◽

10.1016/b978-012375731-9/50053-7 ◽

2005 ◽

pp. 300-304

Author(s):

Julio C. Martinez-Trujillo ◽

Stefan Treue

Keyword(s):

Feature Similarity ◽

Feature Based ◽

Multiplicative Effects

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Detection of tactile inputs in the rat vibrissa pathway

Journal of Neurophysiology ◽

10.1152/jn.00004.2012 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 108 (2) ◽

pp. 479-490 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Douglas R. Ollerenshaw ◽

Bilal A. Bari ◽

Daniel C. Millard ◽

Lauren E. Orr ◽

Qi Wang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

High Speed ◽

Barrel Cortex ◽

Sensory Information ◽

Reaction Times ◽

Response Probability ◽

Relevant Information ◽

Relative Strength ◽

Spatiotemporal Representation ◽

Induced Motion ◽

Electrophysiological Findings

The rapid detection of sensory inputs is crucial for survival. Sensory detection explicitly requires the integration of incoming sensory information and the ability to distinguish between relevant information and ongoing neural activity. In this study, head-fixed rats were trained to detect the presence of a brief deflection of their whiskers resulting from a focused puff of air. The animals showed a monotonic increase in response probability and a decrease in reaction time with increased stimulus strength. High-speed video analysis of whisker motion revealed that animals were more likely to detect the stimulus during periods of reduced self-induced motion of the whiskers, thereby allowing the stimulus-induced whisker motion to exceed the ongoing noise. In parallel, we used voltage-sensitive dye (VSD) imaging of barrel cortex in anesthetized rats receiving the same stimulus set as those in the behavioral portion of this study to assess candidate codes that make use of the full spatiotemporal representation and to compare variability in the trial-by-trial nature of the cortical response and the corresponding variability in the behavioral response. By application of an accumulating evidence framework to the population cortical activity measured in separate animals, a strong correspondence was made between the behavioral output and the neural signaling, in terms of both the response probabilities and the reaction times. Taken together, the results here provide evidence for detection performance that is strongly reliant on the relative strength of signal versus noise, with strong correspondence between behavior and parallel electrophysiological findings.

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The effect of visual salience on memory-based choices

Journal of Neurophysiology ◽

10.1152/jn.00068.2013 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 111 (3) ◽

pp. 481-487 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Arezoo Pooresmaeili ◽

Dominik R. Bach ◽

Raymond J. Dolan

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Sensory Information ◽

Relevant Information ◽

Visual Selective Attention ◽

Visual Salience ◽

Perceptual Decision Making ◽

Capacity Limitations ◽

Course Of Action ◽

Task Irrelevant

Deciding whether a stimulus is the “same” or “different” from a previous presented one involves integrating among the incoming sensory information, working memory, and perceptual decision making. Visual selective attention plays a crucial role in selecting the relevant information that informs a subsequent course of action. Previous studies have mainly investigated the role of visual attention during the encoding phase of working memory tasks. In this study, we investigate whether manipulation of bottom-up attention by changing stimulus visual salience impacts on later stages of memory-based decisions. In two experiments, we asked subjects to identify whether a stimulus had either the same or a different feature to that of a memorized sample. We manipulated visual salience of the test stimuli by varying a task-irrelevant feature contrast. Subjects chose a visually salient item more often when they looked for matching features and less often so when they looked for a nonmatch. This pattern of results indicates that salient items are more likely to be identified as a match. We interpret the findings in terms of capacity limitations at a comparison stage where a visually salient item is more likely to exhaust resources leading it to be prematurely parsed as a match.

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