AN OSCILLATION-BASED MODEL FOR THE NEURONAL BASIS OF ATTENTION

We propose a model for the neuronal implementation of selective visual attention based on the temporal structure of neuronal activity. In pa rticular, we set out to explain the electrophysiological data from are as V4 and IT in monkey cortex of Moran and Desimone [(1985) Science, 2 29, 782-784] using the ''temporal tagging'' hypothesis of Crick and Ko ch [(1990a) Cold Spring Harbor Symposiums in Quantitative Biology, LV, 953-962; (1990b) Seminars in the neurosciences (pp. 1-36)]. Neurons i n primary visual cortex respond to visual stimuli with a Poisson distr ibuted spike train with an appropriate, stimulus-dependent mean firing rate. The firing rate of neurons whose receptive fields overlap with the ''focus of attention'' is modulated with a periodic function in th e 40 Hz range, such that their mean firing rate is identical to the me an firing rate of neurons in ''non-attended'' areas. This modulation i s detected by inhibitory interneurons in V4 and is used to suppress th e response of V4 cells associated with non-attended visual stimuli. Us ing very simple single-cell models, we obtain quantitative agreement w ith Moran and Desimone's (1985) experiments.