RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Saccade Planning Evokes Topographically Specific Activity in the Dorsal and Ventral Streams
JF The Journal of Neuroscience
JO J. Neurosci.
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP 245
OP 252
DO 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1687-14.2015
VO 35
IS 1
A1 Golbarg T. Saber
A1 Franco Pestilli
A1 Clayton E. Curtis
YR 2015
UL http://www.jneurosci.org/content/35/1/245.abstract
AB Saccade planning may invoke spatially-specific feedback signals that bias early visual activity in favor of top-down goals. We tested this hypothesis by measuring cortical activity at the early stages of the dorsal and ventral visual processing streams. Human subjects maintained saccade plans to (prosaccade) or away (antisaccade) from a spatial location over long memory-delays. Results show that cortical activity persists in early visual cortex at the retinotopic location of upcoming saccade goals. Topographically specific activity persists as early as V1, and activity increases along both dorsal (V3A/B, IPS0) and ventral (hV4, VO1) visual areas. Importantly, activity persists when saccade goals are available only via working memory and when visual targets and saccade goals are spatially disassociated. We conclude that top-down signals elicit retinotopically specific activity in visual cortex both in the dorsal and ventral streams. Such activity may underlie mechanisms that prioritize locations of task-relevant objects.