Stimulus representations in visual cortex shaped by spatial attention and microsaccades.

ABSTRACT: Microsaccades (MSs) are commonly associated with spatially directed attention, but how they affect visual processing is still not clear. We studied MSs in a task in which the animal was randomly cued to attend to a target stimulus and ignore distractors, and it was rewarded for detecting a color change in the target. We found that the enhancement of firing rates normally found with attention to a cued stimulus was delayed until the first MS directed towards that stimulus. Once that MS occurred, attention to the target was engaged and there were persistent effects of attention on firing rates for the remainder of the trial. These effects were found in the superficial and deep layers of V4 as well as the lateral pulvinar and IT cortex. Although the tuning curves of V4 cells do not change dep

SUBMITTER: Srinivasan K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10002663 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature