Abstract
Internal brain states strongly modulate sensory processing during behaviour. Studies of visual processing in primates show that attention to space selectively improves behavioural and neural responses to stimuli at the attended locations. Here we develop a visual spatial task for mice that elicits behavioural improvements consistent with the effects of spatial attention, and simultaneously measure network, cellular, and subthreshold activity in primary visual cortex. During trial-by-trial behavioural improvements, local field potential (LFP) responses to stimuli detected inside the receptive field (RF) strengthen. Moreover, detection inside the RF selectively enhances excitatory and inhibitory neuron responses to task-irrelevant stimuli and suppresses noise correlations and low frequency LFP fluctuations. Whole-cell patch-clamp recordings reveal that detection inside the RF increases synaptic activity that depolarizes membrane potential responses at the behaviorally relevant location. Our study establishes that mice display fundamental signatures of visual spatial attention spanning behavioral, network, cellular, and synaptic levels, providing new insight into rapid cognitive enhancement of sensory signals in visual cortex.
Highlights
Internal brain states strongly modulate sensory processing during behaviour
A recent study showed that visual spatial cueing improves ensuing detectability of stimuli at the cued location[30], consistent with effects of spatial orienting and attention[18,31,32]; crucially, this study did not examine the cortical basis for this behavior, did not record neural activity in visual cortical areas, or directly assess if cortical dynamics in mice resemble those in the primate visual system during spatial attention tasks
We simultaneously performed highdensity silicon probe recordings in the primary visual cortex (V1), and found that behavioral improvements were accompanied by stronger neural responses across network and cellular levels, in layer 4 (L4)
Summary
Internal brain states strongly modulate sensory processing during behaviour. Studies of visual processing in primates show that attention to space selectively improves behavioural and neural responses to stimuli at the attended locations. Fundamental studies in primates outline several ways spatial attention modulates behavior and visual processing These include selective increases in spiking to stimuli at a behaviorally relevant location[15,16,17,18,19], reduction of correlated neural variability[20,21], selective modulation of low- and high-frequency synchronization[22,23,24], and activity modulation in specific cortical layers[25]. Our findings provide new insight into the cellular, network, and synaptic basis for rapid modulation of early sensory processing during spatial behaviors
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