Year: 2010
Type: article
Abstract: The role of spike rate versus timing codes in visual target selection is unclear. We simultaneously recorded activity from multiple frontal eye field neurons and asked whether they interacted to select targets from distractors during visual search. When both neurons in a pair selected the target and had overlapping receptive fields (RFs), they cooperated more than when one or neither neuron in the pair selected the target, measured by positive spike timing correlations using joint peristimulus time histogram analysis. The amount of cooperation depended on the location of the search target: it was higher when the target was inside both neurons' RFs than when it was inside one RF but not the other, or outside both RFs. Elevated spike timing coincidences occurred at the time of attentional selection of the target as measured by average modulation of discharge rates. We observed competition among neurons with spatially non-overlapping RFs, measured by negative spike timing correlations. Thus, we provide evidence for dynamic and task-dependent cooperation and competition among frontal eye field neurons during visual target selection.
Source: Journal of Neuroscience
Institution: Vanderbilt University
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Awards: Eunice Kennedy Shriver Intellectual and Developmental Disability Research Center, Training in Fundamental Neuroscience, G2755396, Comparative electrophysiology: Visual event-related potentials and oscillations, G577112812, Saccade Target Selection Frontal Cortex, G9000049790, G9000060478, G9000232061, G9000326625, Training Grant in Vision Research, Core Grant in Vision Research
OpenAlex ID: W1964237285