Rhythmic interactions between the mediodorsal thalamus and prefrontal cortex precede human visual perception.

Autor: Griffiths BJ; Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany., Zaehle T; Department of Neurology, Otto-von Guericke-University, Magdeburg, Germany., Repplinger S; Department of Neurology, Otto-von Guericke-University, Magdeburg, Germany.; ESF International Graduate School on Analysis, Imaging and Modelling of Neuronal and Inflammatory Processes, Otto-von-Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany., Schmitt FC; Department of Neurology, Otto-von Guericke-University, Magdeburg, Germany., Voges J; Department of Stereotactic Neurosurgery, Otto-von-Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany., Hanslmayr S; Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Institute for Neuroscience and Psychology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK., Staudigl T; Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany. tobias.staudigl@psy.lmu.de.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Nature communications [Nat Commun] 2022 Jun 29; Vol. 13 (1), pp. 3736. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Jun 29.
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-31407-z
Abstrakt: The thalamus is much more than a simple sensory relay. High-order thalamic nuclei, such as the mediodorsal thalamus, exert a profound influence over animal cognition. However, given the difficulty of directly recording from the thalamus in humans, next-to-nothing is known about thalamic and thalamocortical contributions to human cognition. To address this, we analysed simultaneously-recorded thalamic iEEG and whole-head MEG in six patients (plus MEG recordings from twelve healthy controls) as they completed a visual detection task. We observed that the phase of both ongoing mediodorsal thalamic and prefrontal low-frequency activity was predictive of perceptual performance. Critically however, mediodorsal thalamic activity mediated prefrontal contributions to perceptual performance. These results suggest that it is thalamocortical interactions, rather than cortical activity alone, that is predictive of upcoming perceptual performance and, more generally, highlights the importance of accounting for the thalamus when theorising about cortical contributions to human cognition.
(© 2022. The Author(s).)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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