Spatial attention decorrelates intrinsic activity fluctuations in macaque area V4
Open accessAbstract
Attention typically amplifies neuronal responses evoked by task-relevant stimuli while attenuating responses to task-irrelevant distracters. In this context, visual distracters constitute an external source of noise that is diminished to improve attended signal quality. Activity that is internal to the cortex itself, stimulus-independent ongoing correlated fluctuations in firing, might also act as task-irrelevant noise. To examine this, we recorded from area V4 of macaques performing an attention-demanding task. The firing of neurons to identically repeated stimuli was highly variable. Much of this variability originates from ongoing low-frequency (<5 Hz) fluctuations in rate correlated across the neuronal population. When attention is directed to a stimulus inside a neuron's receptive field, these correlated fluctuations in rate are reduced. This attention-dependent reduction of ongoing cortical activity improves the signal-to-noise ratio of pooled neural signals substantially more than attention-dependent increases in firing rate.
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Selective attention decreases noise correlations.
“decreases noise correlations (Cohen and Maunsell, 2009; Mitchell et al., 2009)”
From Waking state: rapid variations modulate neural and behavioral responses (2015) · cites this paper as Mitchell et al., 2009
Changes in arousal, attentional state, and neuronal excitability modulate the level of correlated variability in sensory cortex.
“Further, changes in arousal, attentional state and neuronal excitability modulate the level of correlated variability in sensory cortex (Cohen and Maunsell, 2009; Ecker et al., 2010; Ecker and Tolias, 2014; Goris et al., 2014; I-Chun et al., 2015; Mitchell et al., 2009).”
From Waking state: rapid variations modulate neural and behavioral responses (2015) · cites this paper as Mitchell et al., 2009
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References 63 · Cited by 710
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Curtis J Mitchell JF Reynolds JH II-7. Estimates of spike-LFP coherence based on finite spiking data vary with mean firing rate Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience. Conference Abstract 138: Computational and systems neuroscience 2009
- Authors
- Mitchell, J. F., Sundberg, K. A., & Reynolds, J. H.
- Affiliations
- Salk Institute for Biological Studies (US)
- Corresponding author
- Reynolds, John H.
- Venue
- Neuron
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2009-09
- Volume
- 63
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 879-888
- ISSN
- 0896-6273 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC2765230
- OpenAlex
- W2137408158
- Cited by
- 710
- References
- 63
- Citations by year
- 2026: 21 · 2025: 27 · 2024: 36 · 2023: 34 · 2022: 33 · 2021: 42 · 2020: 46 · 2019: 75 · 2018: 45 · 2017: 46 · 2016: 55 · 2015: 53 · 2014: 46 · 2013: 41 · 2012: 48
- FWCI
- 17.81
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Neuron (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (5r01ey016161-05)
- National Eye Institute (R01-EY016161, EY016161)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural dynamics and brain function
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Visual Attention and Saliency Detection
- Keywords
- spatial attention, area V4, signal-to-noise ratio, neural noise, distractor suppression, signal amplification, macaque visual cortex
- MeSH terms
- Action Potentials, Animals, Attention, Macaca, Neurons, Neuropsychological Tests, Photic Stimulation, Reaction Time, Space Perception, Statistics as Topic, Time Factors, Visual Cortex, Visual Fields, Visual Pathways
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