Journal
NATURE NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 10, Issue 11, Pages 1483-1491Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/nn1967
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Funding
- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council [BBS/B/09325] Funding Source: researchfish
- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council [BBS/B/09325] Funding Source: Medline
- Wellcome Trust [070380/Z/03/Z, 070380] Funding Source: Medline
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Attention can selectively enhance neuronal responses and exclude external noise, but the neuronal computations that underlie these effects remain unknown. At the neuronal level, noise exclusion might result in altered spatial integration properties. We tested this proposal by recording neuronal activity and length tuning in neurons of the primary visual cortex of the macaque when attention was directed toward or away from stimuli presented in each neuron's classical receptive field. For cells with central-parafoveal receptive fields, attention reduced spatial integration, as demonstrated by a reduction in preferred stimulus length and in the size of the spatial summation area. Conversely, in cells that represented more peripheral locations, attention increased spatial integration by increasing the cell's summation area. This previously unknown dichotomy between central and peripheral vision could support accurate analysis of attended foveal objects and target selection for impending eye movements to peripheral objects.
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