Morris J S, Friston K J, Dolan R J
Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London, UK.
Proc Biol Sci. 1997 May 22;264(1382):769-75. doi: 10.1098/rspb.1997.0109.
The neural mechanisms involved in the selective processing of salient or behaviourally important stimuli are uncertain. We used an aversive conditioning paradigm in human volunteer subjects to manipulate the salience of visual stimuli (emotionally expressive faces) presented during positron emission tomography (PET) neuroimaging. Increases in salience, and conflicts between the innate and acquired value of the stimuli, produced augmented activation of the pulvinar nucleus of the right thalamus. Furthermore, this pulvinar activity correlated positively with responses in structures hypothesized to mediate value in the brain right amygdala and basal forebrain (including the cholinergic nucleus basalis of Meynert). The results provide evidence that the pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus plays a crucial modulatory role in selective visual processing, and that changes in perceptual salience are mediated by value-dependent plasticity in pulvinar responses.
参与显著或行为上重要刺激的选择性加工的神经机制尚不清楚。我们在人类志愿者受试者中使用厌恶条件范式来操纵正电子发射断层扫描（PET）神经成像期间呈现的视觉刺激（表情丰富的面孔）的显著性。显著性增加以及刺激的先天和后天价值之间的冲突，导致右侧丘脑枕核的激活增强。此外，这种枕核活动与假设在大脑右侧杏仁核和基底前脑（包括梅纳特基底胆碱能核）中介导价值的结构中的反应呈正相关。结果提供了证据，表明丘脑枕核在选择性视觉加工中起关键的调节作用，并且知觉显著性的变化是由枕核反应中依赖价值的可塑性介导的。
