Medical College of Wisconsin
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The attentional field revealed by single-voxel modeling of fMRI time courses. J Neurosci 2015 Mar 25;35(12):5030-42

Date

03/27/2015

Pubmed ID

25810532

Pubmed Central ID

PMC4389598

DOI

10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3754-14.2015

Scopus ID

2-s2.0-84925848438 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)   31 Citations

Abstract

The spatial topography of visual attention is a distinguishing and critical feature of many theoretical models of visuospatial attention. Previous fMRI-based measurements of the topography of attention have typically been too crude to adequately test the predictions of different competing models. This study demonstrates a new technique to make detailed measurements of the topography of visuospatial attention from single-voxel, fMRI time courses. Briefly, this technique involves first estimating a voxel's population receptive field (pRF) and then "drifting" attention through the pRF such that the modulation of the voxel's fMRI time course reflects the spatial topography of attention. The topography of the attentional field (AF) is then estimated using a time-course modeling procedure. Notably, we are able to make these measurements in many visual areas including smaller, higher order areas, thus enabling a more comprehensive comparison of attentional mechanisms throughout the full hierarchy of human visual cortex. Using this technique, we show that the AF scales with eccentricity and varies across visual areas. We also show that voxels in multiple visual areas exhibit suppressive attentional effects that are well modeled by an AF having an enhancing Gaussian center with a suppressive surround. These findings provide extensive, quantitative neurophysiological data for use in modeling the psychological effects of visuospatial attention.

Author List

Puckett AM, DeYoe EA

Author

Edgar A. DeYoe PhD Adjunct Professor in the Radiology department at Medical College of Wisconsin




MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold

Adult
Attention
Brain Mapping
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Middle Aged
Models, Neurological
Neural Inhibition
Photic Stimulation
Time Factors
Visual Cortex