Topic: stimulus selectivity

The sensory cortex is widely considered to be specialized for perception by interpreting complex sensory patterns while also exhibiting structured forms of representational plasticity of behaviorally-relevant stimuli. Recent evidence, however, suggests that sensory cortical neurons directly encode non-sensory variables such as movement and valence. Conjoint representations of sensory and non-sensory variables in the same network could further hone perception or, alternatively, subserve more integrative cognitive processes. Here, we ask the extent to which the sensory cortex is an associative e

When animals attend to visual stimuli, neural responses in visual cortex show increased stimulus selectivity compared to viewing the same stimuli without attending. This increased stimulus selectivity is believed to underlie the improved behavioural detection and discrimination of attended stimuli and is a key neural cor-relate of cognitive control. However, the neural circuit mechanisms of attentional modulation are poorly understood. While GABAergic inhibitory circuits can strongly modulate cortical neural activity, it is un-known whether these circuits implement the attentional modulation o