Thalamo-cortical interactions support selective attention: neural synchrony and information coding

Colloquium | September 13 | 4-5:30 p.m. |  3105 Tolman Hall Beach Room

Speaker/Performer: Yuri Saalman, Princeton

Sponsor: Neuroscience Institute, Helen Wills

The limited capacity of the visual system does not allow simultaneous processing of all information in our natural environment in detail. To overcome this limitation, selective attention mechanisms preferentially route behaviorally relevant information across the visual system for detailed processing. In this seminar, I will discuss recent research that shows: (i) the selective routing of attended information depends on the degree of synchrony between neuronal groups across the cortex; (ii) the thalamic nucleus, the pulvinar, controls cortical information transmission by regulating oscillations and the synchrony between different cortical areas; and (iii) spike timing relative to oscillations, called spike-phase coding, contains behaviorally relevant information complementary to spike rate coding in the visual system. These findings support a vital role for thalamo-cortical interactions in selective attention and cognition in general.

Event Contact: tleonard@berkeley.edu