Attention improves information flow between neuronal populations without changing the communication subspace.

ABSTRACT: Visual attention allows observers to change the influence of different parts of a visual scene on their behavior, suggesting that information can be flexibly shared between visual cortex and neurons involved in decision making. We investigated the neural substrate of flexible information routing by analyzing the activity of populations of visual neurons in the medial temporal area (MT) and oculo-motor neurons in the superior colliculus (SC) while rhesus monkeys switched spatial attention. We demonstrated that attention increases the efficacy of visuomotor communication: trial-to-trial variability in SC population activity could be better predicted by the activity of the MT population (and vice versa) when attention was directed toward their joint receptive fields. Surprisingly, this improv

SUBMITTER: Srinath R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8665027 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature