期刊
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
卷 41, 期 9, 页码 1970-1981出版社
SOC NEUROSCIENCE
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2018-20.2020
关键词
attention; magnetic resonance spectroscopy; parietoinsular vestibular cortex; suppression; thalamus; vestibu-lar system
资金
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) [INST 89/393-1, GR 988/25-1]
- National Science Foundation [1632738]
- Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
- Harris Distinguished Visiting Professorship Program of Dartmouth College
This study investigated how attention directed towards visual processing cross-modally suppresses vestibular responses in the human brain through neurochemical mechanisms. The results indicate that directing attention to visual motion reduces the concentration of excitatory neurotransmitters within a core cortical area of the vestibular system, making it less responsive to excitatory thalamic input.
Attending to a stimulus enhances the neuronal responses to it, while responses to nonattended stimuli are not enhanced and may even be suppressed. Although the neural mechanisms of response enhancement for attended stimuli have been intensely studied, the neural mechanisms underlying attentional suppression remain largely unknown. It is uncertain whether attention acts to suppress the processing in sensory cortical areas that would otherwise process the nonattended stimulus or the sub cortical input to these cortical areas. Moreover, the neurochemical mechanisms inducing a reduction or suppression of neuronal responses to nonattended stimuli are as yet unknown. Here, we investigated how attention directed toward visual processing cross-modally acts to suppress vestibular responses in the human brain. By using functional magnetic resonance spectroscopy in a group of female and male subjects, we find that attention to visual motion downregulates in a load -dependent manner the concentration of excitatory neurotransmitter (glutamate and its precursor glutamine, referred to together as Glx) within the parietoinsular vestibular cortex (PIVC), a core cortical area of the vestibular system, while leaving the concentration of inhibitory neurotransmitter (GABA) in PIVC unchanged. This makes PIVC less responsive to excitatory thalamic vestibular input, as corroborated by functional magnetic resonance imaging. Together, our results suggest that attention acts to suppress the processing of nonattended sensory cues cortically by neurochemically rendering the core cortical area of the nonattended sensory modality less responsive to excitatory thalamic input.
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