Gerth, Rebecca
(2019)
Wiretapping the Brain: Communication of Spatial Selectivity between Frontal and Parietal Cortices.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
Our interactions with the world around us are often guided by vision. The ability to perceive a visual stimulus and plan an eye movement to it requires the coordination of many brain areas. Though we have identified many networks of brain areas that work together during these processes, the content of the information exchanged between them is still poorly understood. We sought to answer this question by analyzing the flow of spatial selectivity information in simultaneously recorded neural activity of two cortical areas, the frontal eye fields (FEF) and the lateral intraparietal area (LIP).
First, we found that the spatial selectivity of the location of the visual stimulus but not the saccade target is well encoded by the local field potential (LFP) induced power. We determined this by comparing the spatial selectivity of the multi-unit neuronal activity (MUA) to that of the LFP at the same recording site. Next, we explored the interactions between FEF and LIP for insight into the exchange of information between the two areas. We analyzed the low-frequency neural signals across areas and found that there is less coherence between signals around the saccade onset when the saccade is directed to the preferred target location of both recording sites compared to the nonpreferred location. For a more direct analysis of the interactions between the two areas, we analyzed the LFP of one area with the MUA of the other by calculating the spike-field coherence (SFC). We found that a small number of recording site pairs exhibited significant SFC, but that the SFC was not significant across the population of pairs.
In summary, we found that the LFP signals both encode the spatial preference of visual stimuli and indicate cortical processing related to saccade generation and execution in FEF and LIP. Both areas appear to conduct this cortical processing largely independent of one another, though they have long been assumed to be working in concert. These results indicate a much more nuanced view of the functional interactions across the frontoparietal network.
Share
| Citation/Export: |
|
| Social Networking: |
|
Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
|
| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
|
| ETD Committee: |
|
| Date: |
18 June 2019 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
28 March 2019 |
| Approval Date: |
18 June 2019 |
| Submission Date: |
4 April 2019 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| Number of Pages: |
164 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Swanson School of Engineering > Bioengineering |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
Frontoparietal, Frontal Eye Fields, Lateral Intraparietal Area, Coherence, Local Field Potentials |
| Date Deposited: |
18 Jun 2019 19:25 |
| Last Modified: |
18 Jun 2019 19:25 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/36314 |
Metrics
Monthly Views for the past 3 years
Plum Analytics
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
![[feed]](/images/feed-icon-32x32.png){kind=icon}