Mirabella Giovanni, Bertini Giuseppe, Samengo Inés, Kilavik Bjørg E, Frilli Deborah, Della Libera Chiara, Chelazzi Leonardo
Department of Neurological and Vision Sciences, Section of Physiology, University of Verona, Strada Le Grazie 8, 37134 Verona, Italy.
Neuron. 2007 Apr 19;54(2):303-18. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2007.04.007.
Neural processing at most stages of the primate visual system is modulated by selective attention, such that behaviorally relevant information is emphasized at the expenses of irrelevant, potentially distracting information. The form of attention best understood at the cellular level is when stimuli at a given location in the visual field must be selected (space-based attention). In contrast, fewer single-unit recording studies have so far explored the cellular mechanisms of attention operating on individual stimulus features, specifically when one feature (e.g., color) of an object must guide behavioral responses while a second feature (e.g., shape) of the same object is potentially interfering and therefore must be ignored. Here we show that activity of neurons in macaque area V4 can underlie the selection of elemental object features and their "translation" into a categorical format that can directly contribute to the control of the animal's behavior.
在灵长类视觉系统的大多数阶段，神经处理过程都受到选择性注意的调节，从而使行为相关信息得到强化，而无关的、可能分散注意力的信息则被忽视。在细胞水平上理解得最为透彻的注意形式是，必须选择视野中给定位置的刺激（基于空间的注意）。相比之下，到目前为止，较少有单单元记录研究探讨基于单个刺激特征的注意的细胞机制，特别是当一个物体的一个特征（如颜色）必须引导行为反应，而同一物体的另一个特征（如形状）可能产生干扰因而必须被忽略时。在这里，我们表明猕猴V4区神经元的活动可以作为对基本物体特征进行选择并将其“转化”为可直接有助于控制动物行为的分类形式的基础。
