An oscillation-based model for the neuronal basis of attention

doi:10.1016/0042-6989(93)90236-P

Vision Research

Volume 33, Issue 18, December 1993, Pages 2789-2802

https://doi.org/10.1016/0042-6989(93)90236-P Get rights and content

We propose a model for the neuronal implementation of selective visual attention based on the temporal structure of neuronal activity. In particular, we set out to explain the electrophysiological data from areas V4 and IT in monkey cortex of Moran and Desimone [(1985) Science, 229, 782–784] using the “temporal tagging” hypothesis of Crick and Koch, 1990a, Crick and Koch, 1990b Seminars in the neurosciences (pp. 1–36)]. Neurons in primary visual cortex respond to visual stimuli with a Poisson distributed spike train with an appropriate, stimulus-dependent mean firing rate. The firing rate of neurons whose receptive fields overlap with the “focus of attention” is modulated with a periodic function in the 40 Hz range, such that their mean firing rate is identical to the mean firing rate of neurons in “non-attended” areas. This modulation is detected by inhibitory interneurons in V4 and is used to suppress the response of V4 cells associated with non-attended visual stimuli. Using very simple single-cell models, we obtain quantitative agreement with Moran and Desimone's (1985) experiments.

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Citation Excerpt :
In von der Malsburg et al. (1994), von der Malsburg points out that the advantage of such a code is the ability to simultaneously signal both the particular sensory stimulus being represented (by the temporal binding of spikes pertaining to that stimulus) as well as various stimulus attributes (by modulating the firing rates of individual cells taking part in the temporally bound neural assembly). Since its inception, the notion of temporal binding as a neural coding tool has received a great deal of attention, from being invoked as a mechanism used by the visual cortex for feature binding (Eckhorn et al., 1998; Gray et al., 1989; Singer, 1993; Singer and Gray, 1995; Engel et al., 1997; Roelfsema and Singer, 1998; Herculano-Houzel et al., 1999) to being posited as the neural correlate of sensory attention (Niebur et al., 1993). In our work so far, we see a recurring theme: while the firing rates of individual neurons in the AL certainly carry a great deal of information, so too do the correlations in spiking across multiple neurons over short time scales.
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An oscillation-based model for the neuronal basis of attention

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Brain Research Bulletin

Neuropsychologia

Current Opinion in Neurobiology

Trends in Neurosciences

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Effects of deactivation of lateral pulvinar or superior colliculus to selectively attend to a visual stimulus

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Coherent oscillations: A mechanism of feature linking in the visual cortex?

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Spatially opponent excitation and inhibition in simple cells of the cat visual cortex

Journal of Neuroscience

The organization of the visual thalamus

Stimulus-specific neuronal oscillations in orientation columns of cat visual cortex

Kinetic analysis of voltageand ion-dependent conductances in saccular hair cells of the bull frog, Rana catesbeiana

Journal of Physiology, London

A model for electrical resonance and frequency tuning in saccular hair cells of the bull-frog, Rana catesbeiana

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