Browse
Submit Data
Databases
API
Help

Dataset Information

20 Views

0 Connections

0 Citations

0 Reanalyses

0 Downloads

Omics score: 0

Layer-specificity in the effects of attention and working memory on activity in primary visual cortex.

ABSTRACT: Neuronal activity in early visual cortex depends on attention shifts but the contribution to working memory has remained unclear. Here, we examine neuronal activity in the different layers of the primary visual cortex (V1) in an attention-demanding and a working memory task. A current-source density analysis reveales top-down inputs in the superficial layers and layer 5, and an increase in neuronal firing rates most pronounced in the superficial and deep layers and weaker in input layer 4. This increased activity is strongest in the attention task but it is also highly reliable during working memory delays. A visual mask erases the V1 memory activity, but it reappeares at a later point in time. These results provide new insights in the laminar circuits involved in the top-down modulation of activity in early visual cortex in the presence and absence of visual stimuli.

SUBMITTER: van Kerkoerle T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5227065 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Json Xml

Publications

Layer-specificity in the effects of attention and working memory on activity in primary visual cortex.

van Kerkoerle Timo T Self Matthew W MW Roelfsema Pieter R PR

Nature communications 20170105

Neuronal activity in early visual cortex depends on attention shifts but the contribution to working memory has remained unclear. Here, we examine neuronal activity in the different layers of the primary visual cortex (V1) in an attention-demanding and a working memory task. A current-source density analysis reveales top-down inputs in the superficial layers and layer 5, and an increase in neuronal firing rates most pronounced in the superficial and deep layers and weaker in input layer 4. This ...[more]

PMID: 28054544

Similar Datasets

Working memory representations in visual cortex mediate distraction effects.

Project description:Although the contents of working memory can be decoded from visual cortex activity, these representations may play a limited role if they are not robust to distraction. We used model-based fMRI to estimate the impact of distracting visual tasks on working memory representations in several visual field maps in visual and frontoparietal association cortex. Here, we show distraction causes the fidelity of working memory representations to briefly dip when both the memorandum and distractor are jointly encoded by the population activities. Distraction induces small biases in memory errors which can be predicted by biases in neural decoding in early visual cortex, but not other regions. Although distraction briefly disrupts working memory representations, the widespread redundancy with which working memory information is encoded may protect against catastrophic loss. In early visual cortex, the neural representation of information in working memory and behavioral performance are intertwined, solidifying its importance in visual memory.

| S-EPMC8342709 | biostudies-literature

Layer-dependent activity in human prefrontal cortex during working memory.

Project description:Working memory involves storing and/or manipulating previously encoded information over a short-term delay period, which is typically followed by a behavioral response based on the remembered information. Although working memory tasks often engage dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, few studies have investigated whether their subprocesses are localized to different cortical depths in this region, and none have done so in humans. Here we use high-resolution functional MRI to interrogate the layer specificity of neural activity during different periods of a delayed-response task in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. We detect activity time courses that follow the hypothesized patterns: namely, superficial layers are preferentially active during the delay period, specifically in trials requiring manipulation (rather than mere maintenance) of information held in working memory, and deeper layers are preferentially active during the response. Results demonstrate that layer-specific functional MRI can be used in higher-order brain regions to noninvasively map cognitive processing in humans.

| S-EPMC6764601 | biostudies-literature

Spatially global representations in human primary visual cortex during working memory maintenance.

Project description:Recent studies suggest that visual features are stored in working memory (WM) via sensory recruitment or sustained stimulus-specific patterns of activity in cortical regions that encode memoranda. One important question concerns the spatial extent of sensory recruitment. One possibility is that sensory recruitment is restricted to neurons that are retinotopically mapped to the positions occupied by the remembered items. Alternatively, specific feature values could be represented via a spatially global recruitment of neurons that encode the remembered feature, regardless of the retinotopic position of the remembered stimulus. Here, we evaluated these alternatives by requiring subjects to remember the orientation of a grating presented in the left or right visual field. Functional magnetic resonance imaging and multivoxel pattern analysis were then used to examine feature-specific activations in early visual regions during memory maintenance. Activation patterns that discriminated the remembered feature were found in regions of contralateral visual cortex that corresponded to the retinotopic position of the remembered item, as well as in ipsilateral regions that were not retinotopically mapped to the position of the stored stimulus. These results suggest that visual details are held in WM through a spatially global recruitment of early sensory cortex. This spatially global recruitment may enhance memory precision by facilitating robust population coding of the stored information.

| S-EPMC2830793 | biostudies-literature

Restoring Latent Visual Working Memory Representations in Human Cortex.

Project description:Working memory (WM) enables the storage and manipulation of limited amounts of information over short periods. Prominent models posit that increasing the number of remembered items decreases the spiking activity dedicated to each item via mutual inhibition, which irreparably degrades the fidelity of each item's representation. We tested these models by determining if degraded memory representations could be recovered following a post-cue indicating which of several items in spatial WM would be recalled. Using an fMRI-based image reconstruction technique, we identified impaired behavioral performance and degraded mnemonic representations with elevated memory load. However, in several cortical regions, degraded mnemonic representations recovered substantially following a post-cue, and this recovery tracked behavioral performance. These results challenge pure spike-based models of WM and suggest that remembered items are additionally encoded within latent or hidden neural codes that can help reinvigorate active WM representations.

| S-EPMC4978188 | biostudies-literature

Working memory guidance of visual attention to threat in offenders.

Project description:Aggression and trait anger have been linked to attentional biases toward angry faces and attribution of hostile intent in ambiguous social situations. Memory and emotion play a crucial role in social-cognitive models of aggression but their mechanisms of influence are not fully understood. Combining a memory task and a visual search task, this study investigated the guidance of attention allocation toward naturalistic face targets during visual search by visual working memory (WM) templates in 113 participants who self-reported having served a custodial sentence. Searches were faster when angry faces were held in working memory regardless of the emotional valence of the visual search target. Higher aggression and trait anger predicted increased working memory modulated attentional bias. These results are consistent with the Social-Information Processing model, demonstrating that internal representations bias attention allocation to threat and that the bias is linked to aggression and trait anger.

| S-EPMC8741051 | biostudies-literature

Primary auditory cortex regulates threat memory specificity.

Project description:Distinguishing threatening from nonthreatening stimuli is essential for survival and stimulus generalization is a hallmark of anxiety disorders. While auditory threat learning produces long-lasting plasticity in primary auditory cortex (Au1), it is not clear whether such Au1 plasticity regulates memory specificity or generalization. We used muscimol infusions in rats to show that discriminatory threat learning requires Au1 activity specifically during memory acquisition and retrieval, but not during consolidation. Memory specificity was similarly disrupted by infusion of PKMζ inhibitor peptide (ZIP) during memory storage. Our findings show that Au1 is required at critical memory phases and suggest that Au1 plasticity enables stimulus discrimination.

| S-EPMC5159661 | biostudies-literature

Memory-based attention capture when multiple items are maintained in visual working memory.

Project description:Efficient visual search requires that attention is guided strategically to relevant objects, and most theories of visual search implement this function by means of a target template maintained in visual working memory (VWM). However, there is currently debate over the architecture of VWM-based attentional guidance. We contrasted a single-item-template hypothesis with a multiple-item-template hypothesis, which differ in their claims about structural limits on the interaction between VWM representations and perceptual selection. Recent evidence from van Moorselaar, Theeuwes, and Olivers (2014) indicated that memory-based capture during search, an index of VWM guidance, is not observed when memory set size is increased beyond a single item, suggesting that multiple items in VWM do not guide attention. In the present study, we maximized the overlap between multiple colors held in VWM and the colors of distractors in a search array. Reliable capture was observed when 2 colors were held in VWM and both colors were present as distractors, using both the original van Moorselaar et al. singleton-shape search task and a search task that required focal attention to array elements (gap location in outline square stimuli). In the latter task, memory-based capture was consistent with the simultaneous guidance of attention by multiple VWM representations. (PsycINFO Database Record

| S-EPMC4925277 | biostudies-literature

The state of memory-matched distractor in working memory influence the visual attention.

Project description:Information in working memory (WM) can guide visual attention towards matched features. While recent work has suggested that cognitive control can act upon WM guidance of visual attention, little is known about how the state of memorized items retaining in WM contribute to its influence over attention. Here, we disentangle the role of inhibition and maintenance on WM-guided attention with a novel delayed match-to-sample dual-task. The results showed that active inhibition facilitated searching by diminishing sensory processing and deterring attentional guidance, indexed by an attenuated P1 amplitude and unaffected N2pc amplitude, respectively. By contrast, active maintenance impaired searching by attentional guidance while sensory processing remained unimpaired, indexed by an enhanced N2pc amplitude and unchanged P1 amplitude, respectively. Furthermore, multivariate pattern analyses could sucessfully decode maintenance and inhibition, suggesting that two states differed in modulating visual attention. We propose that remembered contents may play an anchoring role for attentional guidance, and the state of those contents retaining in WM may directly influence the shifting of attention. The maintenance could guide attention by accessing input information, while the inhibition could deter the shifting of attention by suppressing sensory processing. These findings provide a possible reinterpretation of the influence of WM on attention.

| S-EPMC7707542 | biostudies-literature

Oscillatory activity in parietal and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during retention in visual short-term memory: additive effects of spatial attention and memory load.

Project description:We used whole-head magnetoencephalography to study the representation of objects in visual short-term memory (VSTM) in the human brain. Subjects remembered the location and color of either two or four colored disks that were encoded from the left or right visual field (equal number of distractors in the other visual hemifield). The data were analyzed using time-frequency methods, which enabled us to discover a strong oscillatory activity in the 8-15 Hz band during the retention interval. The study of the alpha power variation revealed two types of responses, in different brain regions. The first was a decrease in alpha power in parietal cortex, contralateral to the stimuli, with no load effect. The second was an increase of alpha power in parietal and lateral prefrontal cortex, as memory load increased, but without interaction with the hemifield of the encoded stimuli. The absence of interaction between side of encoded stimuli and memory load suggests that these effects reflect distinct underlying mechanisms. A novel method to localize the neural generators of load-related oscillatory activity was devised, using cortically-constrained distributed source-localization methods. Some activations were found in the inferior intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and intraoccipital sulcus (IOS). Importantly, strong oscillatory activity was also found in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). Alpha oscillatory activity in DLPFC was synchronized with the activity in parietal regions, suggesting that VSTM functions in the human brain may be implemented via a network that includes bilateral DLPFC and bilateral IOS/IPS as key nodes.

| S-EPMC6870800 | biostudies-literature

The role of early visual cortex in visual short-term memory and visual attention.

Project description:We measured cortical activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging to probe the involvement of early visual cortex in visual short-term memory and visual attention. In four experimental tasks, human subjects viewed two visual stimuli separated by a variable delay period. The tasks placed differential demands on short-term memory and attention, but the stimuli were visually identical until after the delay period. Early visual cortex exhibited sustained responses throughout the delay when subjects performed attention-demanding tasks, but delay-period activity was not distinguishable from zero when subjects performed a task that required short-term memory. This dissociation reveals different computational mechanisms underlying the two processes.

| S-EPMC2696572 | biostudies-literature

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

OmicsDI is an Elixir interoperability service. Learn more ›

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