Händel B, Lutzenberger W, Thier P, Haarmeier T. Selective attention increases the dependency of cortical responses on visual motion coherence in man.
Cereb Cortex 2008;
18:2902-8. [PMID:
18424779 DOI:
10.1093/cercor/bhn049]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Attention improves visual discrimination and consequently allows to discern stimuli with low signal-to-noise ratios that otherwise would remain undetected. We used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to test whether neuromagnetic responses recorded from occipito-temporal cortex, reflecting the size of visual motion signals embedded in noise (motion coherence), would mirror the perceptual changes induced by attention. Attention directed to a given hemifield increased and decreased the coherence modulation of the MEG response over contralateral and ipsilateral visual cortex, respectively, indicating a change in the neuronal signal-to-noise ratio at the population level.
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