Topic: attentional modulation

The size of a neuron’s receptive field increases along the visual hierarchy. Neurons in higher-order visual areas integrate information through a canonical mechanism called normalization, where neurons respond sublinearly to multiple stimuli in the receptive field (Carandini & Heeger, 2012). Neurons in visual cortex exhibit highly heterogeneous degrees of normalization, which can be measured by normalization index, defined as the sum of a neuron’s firing rate to each one of two stimuli divided by its firing rate when both stimuli are presented. Interestingly, it has been demonstrated that

Atypical sensory processing affects approximately 90% of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and has been recently considered a core ASD symptom. In accordance with neurophysiological findings in human subjects, preclinical studies have found altered activity of primary sensory neocortices and sensory association areas following sensory stimuli and perceptual paradigms in several genetic mouse models of ASD. Attention deficits are a common comorbidity of autism and may impact other symptoms. Indeed, recent research suggests that alterations in attention and sensory processing are i