ESI Lecture by Alex Thiele

Attention related coordination of cortical state within and between areas V1 and V4 of the Macaque

Cortical activity reveals spontaneous activity fluctuations that are not solely determined by external inputs, but reflect changes to the underlying excitability of neurons, referred to as cortical state. Cortical states fluctuate strongly between sleep-wake states, but even during wakefulness state fluctuations do occur, which influence sensory processing as well as behavioural performance. The talk will delineate how cortical state changes manifest as changes in coordinated neuronal firing, and as coordinated changes of oscillatory activity across cortical layers within and between cortical areas V1 and V4, and how these are affected by spatial attention.