Dissociable laminar profiles of concurrent bottom-up and top-down modulation in the human visual cortex

Recent developments in human neuroimaging make it possible to non-invasively measure neural activity from different cortical layers. This can potentially reveal not only which brain areas are engaged by a task, but also how. Specifically, bottom-up and top-down responses are associated with distinct...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:eLife 2019-05, Vol.8
Main Authors: Lawrence, Samuel Jd, Norris, David G, de Lange, Floris P
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Attention
Brain
Brain mapping
Diagnostic imaging
Female
fMRI
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Healthy Volunteers
Humans
laminar
layer
Machinery
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Middle Aged
Neuroimaging
Neurons
Neuroscience
NMR
Nuclear magnetic resonance
Optical scanners
Physiological aspects
Visual cortex
Visual Cortex - physiology
Visual Perception
Young Adult
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Summary:Recent developments in human neuroimaging make it possible to non-invasively measure neural activity from different cortical layers. This can potentially reveal not only which brain areas are engaged by a task, but also how. Specifically, bottom-up and top-down responses are associated with distinct laminar profiles. Here, we measured lamina-resolved fMRI responses during a visual task designed to induce concurrent bottom-up and top-down modulations via orthogonal manipulations of stimulus contrast and feature-based attention. BOLD responses were modulated by both stimulus contrast (bottom-up) and by engaging feature-based attention (top-down). Crucially, these effects operated at different cortical depths: Bottom-up modulations were strongest in the middle cortical layer and weaker in deep and superficial layers, while top-down modulations were strongest in the superficial layers. As such, we demonstrate that laminar activity profiles can discriminate between concurrent top-down and bottom-up processing, and are diagnostic of how a brain region is activated.
ISSN:2050-084X
2050-084X
DOI:10.7554/eLife.44422