Saccade-synchronized rapid attention shifts in macaque visual cortical area MT

Tao Yao, Stefan Treue and B. Suresh Krishna ()
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Tao Yao: German Primate Center–Leibniz Institute for Primate Research
Stefan Treue: German Primate Center–Leibniz Institute for Primate Research
B. Suresh Krishna: German Primate Center–Leibniz Institute for Primate Research

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract While making saccadic eye-movements to scan a visual scene, humans and monkeys are able to keep track of relevant visual stimuli by maintaining spatial attention on them. This ability requires a shift of attentional modulation from the neuronal population representing the relevant stimulus pre-saccadically to the one representing it post-saccadically. For optimal performance, this trans-saccadic attention shift should be rapid and saccade-synchronized. Whether this is so is not known. We trained two rhesus monkeys to make saccades while maintaining covert attention at a fixed spatial location. We show that the trans-saccadic attention shift in cortical visual medial temporal (MT) area is well synchronized to saccades. Attentional modulation crosses over from the pre-saccadic to the post-saccadic neuronal representation by about 50 ms after a saccade. Taking response latency into account, the trans-saccadic attention shift is well timed to maintain spatial attention on relevant stimuli, so that they can be optimally tracked and processed across saccades.

Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-03398-3

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