A prefrontal source of visual target enhancement in the macaque area V4

The ventral pre-arcuate area (VPA) in the primate prefrontal cortex has recently been found to play an important role in feature-based selection of visual targets in the context of a naturalistic free-gaze visual search task. While VPA neuronal activation was found to be necessary for behavioral performance as well as target selection in the FEF, its role in the broader context of the visual system remains to be addressed. To this end, we have interrogated the role of the VPA in mediating the effects of feature attention in the macaque visual area V4 by recording in V4 with and without muscimol inactivation in the VPA. We report here that neuronal activation in the VPA is necessary for firing rate increases related to target selection in V4. KEYWORDS: feature attention, visual search, muscimol, neurophysiology

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2017

Author dc:creator

• Ghadooshahy, Azriel (Azriel Sion)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Robert Desimone.

• Brain and Cognitive Sciences.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/114077

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/114077