High-frequency, long-range coupling between prefrontal and visual cortex during attention.

Full Abstract

Electrical recordings in humans and monkeys show attentional enhancement of evoked responses and gamma synchrony in ventral stream cortical areas. Does this synchrony result from intrinsic activity in visual cortex or from inputs from other structures? Using paired recordings in the frontal eye field (FEF) and area V4, we found that attention to a stimulus in their joint receptive field leads to enhanced oscillatory coupling between the two areas, particularly at gamma frequencies. This coupling appeared to be initiated by FEF and was time-shifted by about 8 to 13 milliseconds across a range of frequencies. Considering the expected conduction and synaptic delays between the areas, this time-shifted coupling at gamma frequencies may optimize the postsynaptic impact of spikes from one area upon the other, improving cross-area communication with attention.

Author information

Author/s: Gregoriou, Georgia G (GG); Gotts, Stephen J (SJ); Zhou, Huihui (H); Desimone, Robert (R);

Affiliation: McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

Grants: EY017292 (Agency:NEI NIH HHS) ; EY017921 (Agency:NEI NIH HHS) ; MH64445 (Agency:NIMH NIH HHS)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

Journal: Science (New York, N.Y.) (Science), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2009-May; vol 324 (issue 5931) : pp 1207-10

Dates: Created 2009/05/29; Completed 2009/06/11;

PMID: 19478185, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 6/11/2009, IMS Date: 11 Jun 2009 00:00:00)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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