小柯机器人

美国索尔克生物研究所John H. Reynolds、Zachary W. Davis小组取得一项新突破。他们的研究发现在灵长类行为举止中自发性皮层波调控行为感知。这一研究成果于2020年10月7日在线发表在国际学术期刊《自然》上。

在该研究中，利用最新开发的分析技术来检测嘈杂多电极数据的瞬间动态，研究人员可以识别出清醒状态下、活动狨猴（Callithrix jacchus）视觉皮层中自发波的情况。在经过训练可识别微弱视觉目标的猴子中，发现目标之前自发行波的时间和位置可以预测目标诱发活动的幅度和目标检测的可能性。相比之下，神经活动过程中空间无序波的预测性要差得多。这些结果揭示了通过调节神经和知觉敏感性，自发行波在感觉处理中的重要作用。

据悉，感知灵敏度随时间而变化。这种可变性的潜在来源是皮质活动产生的自发性波动电位，其可以波的形式传播。据报道在麻醉过程中会产生自发性行波，但尚不清楚它们是否在唤醒感知过程中起作用。

附：英文原文

Title: Spontaneous travelling cortical waves gate perception in behaving primates

Author: Zachary W. Davis, Lyle Muller, Julio Martinez-Trujillo, Terrence Sejnowski, John H. Reynolds

Issue&Volume: 2020-10-07

Abstract: Perceptual sensitivity varies from moment to moment. One potential source of this variability is spontaneous fluctuations in cortical activity that can travel as waves1. Spontaneous travelling waves have been reported during anaesthesia2,3,4,5,6,7, but it is not known whether they have a role during waking perception. Here, using newly developed analytic techniques to characterize the moment-to-moment dynamics of noisy multielectrode data, we identify spontaneous waves of activity in the extrastriate visual cortex of awake, behaving marmosets (Callithrix jacchus). In monkeys trained to detect faint visual targets, the timing and position of spontaneous travelling waves before target onset predicted the magnitude of target-evoked activity and the likelihood of target detection. By contrast, spatially disorganized fluctuations of neural activity were much less predictive. These results reveal an important role for spontaneous travelling waves in sensory processing through the modulation of neural and perceptual sensitivity.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2802-y

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2802-y

Nature：《自然》，创刊于1869年。隶属于施普林格·自然出版集团，最新IF：69.504
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