The Effects of Context and Attention on Spiking Activity in Human Early Visual Cortex

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002420
• Publication Date: 2016-03-25T17:32:53Z
• Authors: Matthew W. Self; Judith C. Peters; Jessy K. Possel; Joel Reithler; Rainer Goebel; Peterjan Ris; Danique Jeurissen; Leila Reddy; Steven Claus; Johannes C. Baayen; Pieter R. Roelfsema
• Keywords: Surround suppression

Here we report the first quantitative analysis of spiking activity in human early visual cortex. We recorded multi-unit from two electrodes area V2/V3 a patient implanted with depth as part her treatment for epilepsy. observed well-localized receptive fields tunings contrast, orientation, spatial frequency, and size, similar to those reported macaque. also pronounced gamma oscillations local-field potential that could be used estimate underlying response properties. Spiking responses were modulated by context attention. orientation-tuned surround suppression: suppressed image regions uniform orientation enhanced contrast. Additionally, on perceptually segregated background, indicating neurons cortex are sensitive figure-ground structure. object-based When mentally traced curve through neurons' fields, accompanying shift attention neuronal activity. These results demonstrate tuning properties cells macaque can both contextual factors behavioral relevance. Our results, therefore, imply system is an excellent model