Spatial attention decorrelates intrinsic activity fluctuations in macaque area V4. Export

@article{citeulike:5858174, abstract = {Attention typically amplifies neuronal responses evoked by task-relevant stimuli while attenuating responses to task-irrelevant distracters. In this context, visual distracters constitute an external source of noise that is diminished to improve attended signal quality. Activity that is internal to the cortex itself, stimulus-independent ongoing correlated fluctuations in firing, might also act as task-irrelevant noise. To examine this, we recorded from area V4 of macaques performing an attention-demanding task. The firing of neurons to identically repeated stimuli was highly variable. Much of this variability originates from ongoing low-frequency (<5 Hz) fluctuations in rate correlated across the neuronal population. When attention is directed to a stimulus inside a neuron's receptive field, these correlated fluctuations in rate are reduced. This attention-dependent reduction of ongoing cortical activity improves the signal-to-noise ratio of pooled neural signals substantially more than attention-dependent increases in firing rate.}, author = {Mitchell, Jude F. and Sundberg, Kristy A. and Reynolds, John H.}, citeulike-article-id = {5858174}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2009.09.013}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19778515}, citeulike-linkout-2 = {http://www.hubmed.org/display.cgi?uids=19778515}, day = {24}, doi = {10.1016/j.neuron.2009.09.013}, issn = {1097-4199}, journal = {Neuron}, keywords = {attention, oscillation, vision}, month = {September}, number = {6}, pages = {879--888}, posted-at = {2009-10-01 17:06:07}, priority = {2}, title = {Spatial attention decorrelates intrinsic activity fluctuations in macaque area V4.}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2009.09.013}, volume = {63}, year = {2009} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:5858174 L3 - citeulike-article-id:5858174 N2 - Attention typically amplifies neuronal responses evoked by task-relevant stimuli while attenuating responses to task-irrelevant distracters. In this context, visual distracters constitute an external source of noise that is diminished to improve attended signal quality. Activity that is internal to the cortex itself, stimulus-independent ongoing correlated fluctuations in firing, might also act as task-irrelevant noise. To examine this, we recorded from area V4 of macaques performing an attention-demanding task. The firing of neurons to identically repeated stimuli was highly variable. Much of this variability originates from ongoing low-frequency (<5 Hz) fluctuations in rate correlated across the neuronal population. When attention is directed to a stimulus inside a neuron's receptive field, these correlated fluctuations in rate are reduced. This attention-dependent reduction of ongoing cortical activity improves the signal-to-noise ratio of pooled neural signals substantially more than attention-dependent increases in firing rate. IS - 6 JF - Neuron SN - 1097-4199 EP - 888 TI - Spatial attention decorrelates intrinsic activity fluctuations in macaque area V4. VL - 63 SP - 879 KW - attention KW - oscillation KW - vision AU - Mitchell, Jude AU - Sundberg, Kristy AU - Reynolds, John PY - 2009/09/24/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2009.09.013 ER -