A spatiotemporal mechanism of visual attention: Superdiffusive motion and theta oscillations of neural population activity patterns.

ABSTRACT: Recent evidence has demonstrated that during visual spatial attention sampling, neural activity and behavioral performance exhibit large fluctuations. To understand the origin of these fluctuations and their functional role, here, we introduce a mechanism based on the dynamical activity pattern (attention spotlight) emerging from neural circuit models in the transition regime between different dynamical states. This attention activity pattern with rich spatiotemporal dynamics flexibly samples from different stimulus locations, explaining many key aspects of temporal fluctuations such as variable theta oscillations of visual spatial attention. Moreover, the mechanism expands our understanding of how visual attention exploits spatially complex fluctuations characterized by superdiffusive mot

SUBMITTER: Chen G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9032965 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature