Browse
Submit Data
Databases
API
Help

Dataset Information

0 Views

0 Connections

0 Citations

0 Reanalyses

0 Downloads

Omics score: 0

Value-based modulations in human visual cortex.

ABSTRACT: Economists and cognitive psychologists have long known that prior rewards bias decision making in favor of options with high expected value. Accordingly, value modulates the activity of sensorimotor neurons involved in initiating movements toward one of two competing decision alternatives. However, little is known about how value influences the acquisition and representation of incoming sensory information or about the neural mechanisms that track the relative value of each available stimulus to guide behavior. Here, fMRI revealed value-related modulations throughout spatially selective areas of the human visual system in the absence of overt saccadic responses (including in V1). These modulations were primarily associated with the reward history of each stimulus and not to self-reported estimates of stimulus value. Finally, subregions of frontal and parietal cortex represent the differential value of competing alternatives and may provide signals to bias spatially selective visual areas in favor of more valuable stimuli.

SUBMITTER: Serences JT

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3384552 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Json Xml

Publications

Value-based modulations in human visual cortex.

Serences John T JT

Neuron 20081201 6

Economists and cognitive psychologists have long known that prior rewards bias decision making in favor of options with high expected value. Accordingly, value modulates the activity of sensorimotor neurons involved in initiating movements toward one of two competing decision alternatives. However, little is known about how value influences the acquisition and representation of incoming sensory information or about the neural mechanisms that track the relative value of each available stimulus to ...[more]

PMID: 19109919

Similar Datasets

Engaging in word recognition elicits highly specific modulations in visual cortex.

Project description:A person's cognitive state determines how their brain responds to visual stimuli. The most common such effect is a response enhancement when stimuli are task relevant and attended rather than ignored. In this fMRI study, we report a surprising twist on such attention effects in the visual word form area (VWFA), a region that plays a key role in reading. We presented participants with strings of letters and visually similar shapes, which were either relevant for a specific task (lexical decision or gap localization) or ignored (during a fixation dot color task). In the VWFA, the enhancement of responses to attended stimuli occurred only for letter strings, whereas non-letter shapes evoked smaller responses when attended than when ignored. The enhancement of VWFA activity was accompanied by strengthened functional connectivity with higher-level language regions. These task-dependent modulations of response magnitude and functional connectivity were specific to the VWFA and absent in the rest of visual cortex. We suggest that language regions send targeted excitatory feedback into the VWFA only when the observer is trying to read. This feedback enables the discrimination of familiar and nonsense words and is distinct from generic effects of visual attention.

| S-EPMC10089978 | biostudies-literature

Value-driven attentional priority signals in human basal ganglia and visual cortex.

Project description:Goal-directed and stimulus-driven factors determine attentional priority through a well defined dorsal frontal-parietal and ventral temporal-parietal network of brain regions, respectively. Recent evidence demonstrates that reward-related stimuli also have high attentional priority, independent of their physical salience and goal-relevance. The neural mechanisms underlying such value-driven attentional control are unknown. Using human functional magnetic resonance imaging, we demonstrate that the tail of the caudate nucleus and extrastriate visual cortex respond preferentially to task-irrelevant but previously reward-associated objects, providing an attentional priority signal that is sensitive to reward history. The caudate tail has not been implicated in the control of goal-directed or stimulus-driven attention, but is well suited to mediate the value-driven control of attention. Our findings reveal the neural basis of value-based attentional priority.

| S-EPMC4253668 | biostudies-literature

Near-real-time feature-selective modulations in human cortex.

Project description:For neural activity to be linked with cognitive function, information is needed about both the temporal dynamics and the content of neural codes. Traditionally, recording of single neurons in animals has been the primary means of obtaining high temporal resolution and precise information about neural tuning properties such as selectivity for different sensory features. Recent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies in humans have been able to measure feature selectivity within specific subregions of sensory cortex (e.g., orientation selectivity in primary visual cortex, or V1) [1, 2]. However, investigating the neural mechanisms that support cognitive processing-which often occurs rapidly on a subsecond scale-with a temporally insensitive method such as fMRI severely limits the types of inferences that can be drawn. Here, we describe a new method for tracking the rapid temporal evolution of feature-selective information processing with scalp recordings of electroencephalography (EEG). We generate orientation-selective response profiles based on the spatially distributed pattern of steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) responses to flickering visual stimuli. Using this approach, we report a multiplicative attentional modulation of these feature-selective response profiles with a temporal resolution of 24-120 ms, which is far faster than that achieved with fMRI. Finally, we show that behavioral performance on a discrimination task can be predicted based on the amplitude of these temporally precise feature-selective response profiles. This method thus provides a high-temporal-resolution metric that can be used to track the influence of cognitive manipulations on feature-selective information processing in human cortex.

| S-EPMC3608396 | biostudies-literature

Neuronal Modulations in Visual Cortex Are Associated with Only One of Multiple Components of Attention.

Project description:Neuronal signals related to visual attention are found in widespread brain regions, and these signals are generally assumed to participate in a common mechanism of attention. However, the behavioral effects of attention in detection can be separated into two distinct components: spatially selective shifts in either the criterion or sensitivity of the subject. Here we show that a paradigm used by many single-neuron studies of attention conflates behavioral changes in the subject's criterion and sensitivity. Then, using a task designed to dissociate these two components, we found that multiple aspects of attention-related neuronal modulations in area V4 of monkey visual cortex corresponded to behavioral shifts in sensitivity, but not criterion. This result suggests that separate components of attention are associated with signals in different brain regions and that attention is not a unitary process in the brain, but instead consists of distinct neurobiological mechanisms.

| S-EPMC4458699 | biostudies-literature

Prefrontal cortex encodes value pop-out in visual search.

Project description:Recent evidence demonstrates that long-term object value association can enhance visual search efficiency, a phenomenon known as value pop-out. However, the neural mechanism underlying this effect is not fully understood. Given the known role of the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) in visual search and value memory, we recorded its single-unit activity (n = 526) in two macaque monkeys while they engaged in the value-driven search. Monkeys had to determine whether a high-value target was present within a variable number of low-value objects. Differential neural firing, as well as gamma-band power, indicated the presence of a target within ∼150ms of display onset. Notably, this differential activity was negatively correlated with search time and had reduced set-size dependence during efficient search. On the other hand, neural firing and its variability were higher in inefficient search. These findings implicate vlPFC in rapid detection of valuable targets which would be a crucial skill in competitive environments.

| S-EPMC10481287 | biostudies-literature

Sustained selective attention to competing amplitude-modulations in human auditory cortex.

Project description:Auditory selective attention plays an essential role for identifying sounds of interest in a scene, but the neural underpinnings are still incompletely understood. Recent findings demonstrate that neural activity that is time-locked to a particular amplitude-modulation (AM) is enhanced in the auditory cortex when the modulated stream of sounds is selectively attended to under sensory competition with other streams. However, the target sounds used in the previous studies differed not only in their AM, but also in other sound features, such as carrier frequency or location. Thus, it remains uncertain whether the observed enhancements reflect AM-selective attention. The present study aims at dissociating the effect of AM frequency on response enhancement in auditory cortex by using an ongoing auditory stimulus that contains two competing targets differing exclusively in their AM frequency. Electroencephalography results showed a sustained response enhancement for auditory attention compared to visual attention, but not for AM-selective attention (attended AM frequency vs. ignored AM frequency). In contrast, the response to the ignored AM frequency was enhanced, although a brief trend toward response enhancement occurred during the initial 15 s. Together with the previous findings, these observations indicate that selective enhancement of attended AMs in auditory cortex is adaptive under sustained AM-selective attention. This finding has implications for our understanding of cortical mechanisms for feature-based attentional gain control.

| S-EPMC4178064 | biostudies-literature

Feature-based attention modulates orientation-selective responses in human visual cortex.

Project description:How does feature-based attention modulate neural responses? We used adaptation to quantify the effect of feature-based attention on orientation-selective responses in human visual cortex. Observers were adapted to two superimposed oblique gratings while attending to one grating only. We measured the magnitude of attention-induced orientation-selective adaptation both psychophysically, by the behavioral tilt aftereffect, and physiologically, using fMRI response adaptation. We found evidence for orientation-selective attentional modulation of neuronal responses-a lower fMRI response for the attended than the unattended orientation-in multiple visual areas, and a significant correlation between the magnitude of the tilt aftereffect and that of fMRI response adaptation in V1, the earliest site of orientation coding. These results show that feature-based attention can selectively increase the response of neuronal subpopulations that prefer the attended feature, even when the attended and unattended features are coded in the same visual areas and share the same retinotopic location.

| S-EPMC2789471 | biostudies-literature

Oscillatory modulations in human fusiform cortex during motion-induced blindness: intracranial recording.

Project description:Motion-induced blindness (MIB) is an illusory phenomenon, in which a static target surrounded by moving distracters is perceived to disappear. We determined the electrocorticographic (ECoG) correlates of MIB.While undergoing intracranial ECoG recording, a patient with focal epilepsy was instructed to report the transitions of a visual target, which was designed to illusorily or physically disappear and reappear. We then determined the neural modulations associated with illusory and physical transitions of the target. We also tested whether the phase of local delta activity could predict exclusively illusory transitions.High-gamma activity at 80-150 Hz was attenuated in the fusiform region prior to the reports of illusory and real visual target disappearance. Conversely, such high-gamma activity was augmented prior to the report of real target reappearance. Exclusively around illusory disappearance but not around real one, the delta phases in the fusiform region showed a highly skewed distribution with preference of the negative peak.Neuronal modulations in the fusiform region may be involved in visual awareness, while spontaneous fluctuations of neural states entrained on delta rhythm may be involved in generation of MIB.Our study increases our understanding of the mechanisms of visual awareness.

| S-EPMC3400722 | biostudies-literature

Value-driven attentional capture enhances distractor representations in early visual cortex.

Project description:When a behaviorally relevant stimulus has been previously associated with reward, behavioral responses are faster and more accurate compared to equally relevant but less valuable stimuli. Conversely, task-irrelevant stimuli that were previously associated with a high reward can capture attention and distract processing away from relevant stimuli (e.g., seeing a chocolate bar in the pantry when you are looking for a nice, healthy apple). Although increasing the value of task-relevant stimuli systematically up-regulates neural responses in early visual cortex to facilitate information processing, it is not clear whether the value of task-irrelevant distractors influences behavior via competition in early visual cortex or via competition at later stages of decision-making and response selection. Here, we measured functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in human visual cortex while subjects performed a value-based learning task, and we applied a multivariate inverted encoding model (IEM) to assess the fidelity of distractor representations in early visual cortex. We found that the fidelity of neural representations related to task-irrelevant distractors increased when the distractors were previously associated with a high reward. This finding suggests that value-driven attentional capture begins with sensory modulations of distractor representations in early areas of visual cortex.

| S-EPMC6703696 | biostudies-literature

Acuity-independent effects of visual deprivation on human visual cortex.

Project description:Visual development depends on sensory input during an early developmental critical period. Deviation of the pointing direction of the two eyes (strabismus) or chronic optical blur (anisometropia) separately and together can disrupt the formation of normal binocular interactions and the development of spatial processing, leading to a loss of stereopsis and visual acuity known as amblyopia. To shed new light on how these two different forms of visual deprivation affect the development of visual cortex, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to study the temporal evolution of visual responses in patients who had experienced either strabismus or anisometropia early in life. To make a specific statement about the locus of deprivation effects, we took advantage of a stimulation paradigm in which we could measure deprivation effects that arise either before or after a configuration-specific response to illusory contours (ICs). Extraction of ICs is known to first occur in extrastriate visual areas. Our ERP measurements indicate that deprivation via strabismus affects both the early part of the evoked response that occurs before ICs are formed as well as the later IC-selective response. Importantly, these effects are found in the normal-acuity nonamblyopic eyes of strabismic amblyopes and in both eyes of strabismic patients without amblyopia. The nonamblyopic eyes of anisometropic amblyopes, by contrast, are normal. Our results indicate that beyond the well-known effects of strabismus on the development of normal binocularity, it also affects the early stages of monocular feature processing in an acuity-independent fashion.

| S-EPMC4121844 | biostudies-literature

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

OmicsDI is an Elixir interoperability service. Learn more ›

Tweets

OmicsDI Databases

PRIDE
PeptideAtlas
MassIVE
JPOST Repository
Physiome Model Repository

EGA
EVA
ENA
LINCS
PAXDB
Cell Collective

MetaboLights
Metabolomics Workbench
MetabolomeExpress
GNPS
BioModels
FAIRDOMHub

ArrayExpress
dbGaP
ExpressionAtlas
GEO
NODE

Information

Databases
Help
API
Contact us
Code on GitHub
Terms of use
Submit Data