Functional organization and spatial resolution of attentional feedback from frontal to visual cortex

Sensory processing is a way to understand the nervous system in action. Behavioral context strongly affects sensory processing. For example, a brief visual stimulus is easier to detect if it appears in a predictable spatial location. This attention to visual space strongly enhances neural and behavioral responses to stimuli in those locations, and is thought to rely on feedback activity from cognitive areas in frontal cortex across multiple areas of visual cortex. The detailed neural mechanisms that allow cognitive control of multiple visual brain areas remain unknown. Addressing this gap requires measuring neural activity from functionally and retinotopically defined projection neurons in frontal cortex and their target neurons in visual cortex, with a framework to relate this activity to attentional behavior. Recently, long-standing barriers for study of visual spatial attention in mice have been overcome, permitting use of novel techniques for functionally targeted, multi-area recordings and optogenetics to dissect how feedback circuitry underlies effects of spatial attention. This innovative combination of techniques will 1) define functional organization and retinotopic precision of top down feedback circuitry from anterior cingulate cortex across primary and higher visual cortical areas, and 2) define the functional organization and efficacy of top-down feedback projections during spatial attention. SIGNIFICANCE. This project will meet a significant need to understand how an internal cognitive state—attention—uses feedback to modulate the perceptual intensity of external sensory events. Establishing a detailed blueprint for neural substrates of top-down feedback during attention and sensory perception will provide greater understanding of cognitive flexibility, and provide insight for conditions characterized by deficits of attention and sensory perception. INNOVATION. The proposal provides technical innovation by functionally identifying the spatial organization and neural substrates of retinotopic communication from higher-order to visual brain areas during spatial attention. It provides conceptual innovation by establishing a framework for multi-area, pathway-specific information processing and cognitive feedback that controls the sensitivity of sensory perception.