THALAMOCORTICAL MECHANISMS OF ATTENTION IN VISION

丘脑皮质视觉注意力机制

• 批准号: 2271445
• 负责人: DAVID B BENDER
• 金额: $ 24.04万
• 依托单位: STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT BUFFALO
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 1994
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1994-09-30 至 1998-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/2271445
• 关键词: Macaca mulatta; attention; brain electrical activity; experimental brain lesion; neural information processing; neuropsychological tests; pulvinar thalami; thalamocortical tract; visual stimulus

The long-term goal of this project is to understand the brain mechanisms underlying control of attention. Attention deficit disorders are among the most common developmental disorders in children. Their social and educational consequences incur major costs to the individual and society. Development of an adequate understanding of the underlying neural mechanisms of attention would go a long way toward improving diagnosis and treatment of such disorders. Behavioral and neurophysiological techniques are now available to measure the effects of attention on neuronal activity, and thus provide a way to determine which brain structures are involved in different forms of attentional control. This project tests the basic hypothesis that input to the cerebral cortex from the thalamus plays a critical role in attentional modulation of cortical activity, and that that modulation is critical for behavior. Both physiological (microelectrode recording) and ablation-behavior methods are used in the monkey. The physiological studies examine how changes in attention modulate single neuron activity. Three different behavioral tasks are used to control attention: a task in which relevant stimuli are selected from distractors, a task which directs attention toward different spatial locations, and a task which modulates the general attentive state. Experiment l determines whether varying attention in these tasks modulates discharge of thalamic neurons. Microelectrode recordings are made from pulvinar cells while monkeys perform the behavioral tasks. Experiment 11 tests the hypothesis that thalamic inactivation eliminates attentional modulation of cortical neurons. Microelectrode recordings are made in cortical areas connected with the pulvinar before and after kainic acid lesions, or reversible inactivation (muscimol injection), of the pulvinar. The behavioral studies (Experiment Ill) determine whether pulvinar lesions that eliminate attentional modulation of cortical neurons also impair related forms of attention-dependent behavior. Performance on a visuotopic filtering task, a landmark saccade task, and the Continuous Performance task are compared before and after kainic acid lesions of the pulvinar.

该项目的长期目标是了解大脑机制 关注的基本控制。注意缺陷障碍是 儿童中最常见的发育障碍。 他们的社交和 教育后果给个人和社会带来了重大成本。 发展对基本神经的充分理解 注意机制将在改善诊断和 治疗此类疾病。行为和神经生理技术 现在可以衡量注意力对神经元的影响 活动，因此提供了确定哪些大脑结构的方法 参与不同形式的注意力控制。该项目测试 基本假设是从丘脑玩耍中输入大脑皮层的基本假设 在皮质活性的注意调制中的关键作用，并且 该调制对于行为至关重要。两者都生理 （Microelectrode Recording）在 猴。 生理研究检查了注意调节的变化如何 神经元活性。使用三种不同的行为任务来控制 注意：从干扰因素中选择相关刺激的任务， 将注意力转移到不同空间位置的任务，一个 调节一般细心状态的任务。实验确定 在这些任务中的注意力是否会改变丘脑的排放 神经元。微电极记录是由pulvinar细胞制成的 猴子执行行为任务。实验11检验假设 丘脑的失活消除了皮质的注意调制 神经元。微电极记录是在连接的皮质区域进行的 与海藻酸病变之前和之后的pulvinar或可逆 pulvinar的灭活（墨西哥酚注射）。行为研究 （实验生病）确定是否消除了脉冲病变 皮质神经元的注意调节也损害了相关的形式 注意依赖性行为。视觉过滤任务上的性能， 比较具有里程碑意义的扫视任务和连续的性能任务 pulvinar的海藻酸病变之前和之后。