QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

HOME  |   SEARCH  |   ARCHIVE  |   SUBSCRIBE  |   CONTACT  |   HELP

The Journal of Neuroscience, November 23, 2005, 25(47):11023-11033; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2904-05.2005

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Submit an eLetter Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (11) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by McAdams, C. J. Articles by Reid, R. C. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by McAdams, C. J. Articles by Reid, R. C.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Attention Modulates the Responses of Simple Cells in Monkey Primary Visual Cortex

Carrie J. McAdams and R. Clay Reid

Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115

Spatial attention has long been postulated to act as a spotlight that increases the salience of visual stimuli at the attended location. We examined the effects of attention on the receptive fields of simple cells in primary visual cortex (V1) by training macaque monkeys to perform a task with two modes. In the attended mode, the stimuli relevant to the animal's task overlay the receptive field of the neuron being recorded. In the unattended mode, the animal was cued to attend to stimuli outside the receptive field of that neuron. The relevant stimulus, a colored pixel, was briefly presented within a white-noise stimulus, a flickering grid of black and white pixels. The receptive fields of the neurons were mapped by correlating spikes with the white-noise stimulus in both attended and unattended modes. We found that attention could cause significant modulation of the visually evoked response despite an absence of significant effects on the overall firing rates. On further examination of the relationship between the strength of the visual stimulation and the firing rate, we found that attention appears to cause multiplicative scaling of the visually evoked responses of simple cells, demonstrating that attention reaches back to the initial stages of visual cortical processing.

Key words: attention; striate; vision; cortex; macaque; mapping; receptive field

---

Received March 22, 2005; revised October 5, 2005; accepted October 19, 2005.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				C. I. Buia and P. H. Tiesinga Role of Interneuron Diversity in the Cortical Microcircuit for Attention J Neurophysiol, May 1, 2008; 99(5): 2158 - 2182. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				X. Li and M. A. Basso Preparing to Move Increases the Sensitivity of Superior Colliculus Neurons J. Neurosci., April 23, 2008; 28(17): 4561 - 4577. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				S. P. Kelly, M. Gomez-Ramirez, and J. J. Foxe Spatial Attention Modulates Initial Afferent Activity in Human Primary Visual Cortex Cereb Cortex, March 4, 2008; (2008) bhn022v1. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				M. A. Smith, R. C. Kelly, and T. S. Lee Dynamics of Response to Perceptual Pop-Out Stimuli in Macaque V1 J Neurophysiol, December 1, 2007; 98(6): 3436 - 3449. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				N. A. Crowder, J. van Kleef, B. Dreher, and M. R. Ibbotson Complex Cells Increase Their Phase Sensitivity at Low Contrasts and Following Adaptation J Neurophysiol, September 1, 2007; 98(3): 1155 - 1166. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				M. A. Silver, D. Ress, and D. J. Heeger Neural Correlates of Sustained Spatial Attention in Human Early Visual Cortex J Neurophysiol, January 1, 2007; 97(1): 229 - 237. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home  |   Search  |   Archive  |   Subscribe  |   Contact  |   Help