In this week’s NY Times, Susana Martinez-Conde reminds us that our visual system works by detecting change.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/opinion/sunday/vision-is-all-about-change.html
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This study shows oscillatory synchrony between different frontal lobe areas during preparatory focusing of attention. Interestingly, the same neurons participated in attention and motor networks, only at different frequencies. This is further evidence that rhythmic synchrony may allow neurons to multiplex their functions.
Totah et al Cerebral Cortex 2013Miller Lab work cited:
Buschman, T.J. and Miller, E.K. (2007) Top-down versus bottom-up control of attention in the prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices. Science. 315: 1860-1862 The Scientist’s “Hot Paper” for October 2009. View PDF »Siegel, M., Warden, M.R., and Miller, E.K. (2009) Phase-dependent neuronal coding of objects in short-term memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106: 21341-21346. View PDF »
Miller, E.K. and Cohen, J.D. (2001) An integrative theory of prefrontal cortex function. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 24:167-202. Designated a Current Classic by Thomson Scientific as among the most cited papers in Neuroscience and Behavior. View PDF »
Rainer, G., Rao, S.C., and Miller, E.K. (1999) Prospective coding for objects in the primate prefrontal cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 19:5493-5505. View PDF »
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The human prefrontal cortex may not be special in terms of its size relative to other primates, but it is still a pretty special.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/2013/05/16/gorillas-agree-human-frontal-cortex-is-nothing-special/?utm_source=feedlyWant to know what it does? Here’s a start:
Miller, E.K. and Cohen, J.D. (2001) An integrative theory of prefrontal cortex function. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 24:167-202. Designated a Current Classic by Thomson Scientific as among the most cited papers in Neuroscience and Behavior. View PDF » -
The title says it all. Oscillations are useful for all sorts of things.
Synchrony in 32 metronomes -
A number of laboratories have been suggesting that top-down vs bottom-up attention signals may be transmitted across the cortex via neural synchronization at beta vs gamma frequencies, respectively (Buschman and Miller, 2007; Bosman et al, 2012; Gregoriou et al, 2009, see review by Wang 2010). Chanes et al (2013) tested this by entraining the human frontal cortex at those frequencies. This produced the predicted top-down vs bottom-up effects on behavior: Beta modulated (top-down) response criterion whereas gamma modulated (bottom-up) perceptual sensitivity. This supports observations that different frequencies of neural synchrony support feedback vs feedforward cortical processing. It also shows how neural synchrony supports multiplexing of function: Activity from the same neurons has different functional outcomes depending on their rhythmic dynamics.
Chanes et al (2013)Buschman, T.J. and Miller, E.K. (2007) Top-down versus bottom-up control of attention in the prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices. Science. 315: 1860-1862 The Scientist’s “Hot Paper” for October 2009. View PDF »
G.G. Gregoriou, S.J. Gotts, H. Zhou, R. Desimone (2009) High-frequency, long-range coupling between prefrontal and visual cortex during attention Science, 324 (2009), pp. 1207–1210.
C.A. Bosman, J.-M. Schoffelen, N. Brunet, R. Oostenveld, A.M. Bastos, T. Womelsdorf, B. Rubehn, T. Stieglitz, P. De Weerd, P. Fries (2012) Attentional stimulus selection through selective synchronization between monkey visual areas. Neuron, 75 (2012), pp. 875–888
X.-J. Wang (2010) Neurophysiological and computational principles of cortical rhythms in cognition. Physiol. Rev., 90 (2010), pp. 1195–1268
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Personally, my favorite is the 3rd prize winner: Look at Boston as if you are a giant with eyes 200 yards apart.
http://illusionoftheyear.com/ -
A nice review of the brain areas and neural mechanisms underlying attention and set-shifting.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166432813002453 -
MIT neuroscientist Suzanne Corkin, author of the new book “Permanent Present Tense,” tells of her nearly five decades studying a man whose memory loss transformed science.
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Tirin Moore and Karl Deisseroth named Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators. Congrats to both.
The Miller Lab is proud to be in the same scientific family as Tirin. “Pappa” Charlie Gross must be also be proud. See: Neurotree
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Rhythmic synchrony between neurons has been suggested as a mechanism for establishing communication channels between neurons. However, this hypothesis has been criticized because of observations that the exact frequency of gamma oscillations bounces around too much to provide a stable communication channel. (BTW, it doesn’t seem to bother anyone that single neuron activity also bounces around).
In this study, Roberts et al record from V1 and V2 simultaneously while presenting gratings of varying contrast. Even though the gamma frequencies changed with stimulus contrast and fluctuated over time, coherence remained stable between V1 and V2. Thus, rhythmic synchrony can provide a stable channel for neural communication.
http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273(13)00227-4?utm_source=feedlyFor further reading on the role of rhythmic synchrony in neural communication see:
Miller, E.K. and Buschman, T.J. (2013) Cortical circuits for the control of attention. Current Opinion in Neurobiology. 23:216–222 View PDF »Buschman, T.J., Denovellis, E.L., Diogo, C., Bullock, D. and Miller, E.K. (2012) Synchronous oscillatory neural ensembles for rules in the prefrontal cortex. Neuron, 76: 838-846. View PDF