Neural responses to salient visual stimuli

The neural mechanisms involved in the selective processing of salient or behaviourally important stimuli are uncertain. We used an aversive conditioning paradigm in human volunteer subjects to manipulate the salience of visual stimuli (emotionally expressive faces) presented during positron emission...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Proceedings of the Royal Society. B, Biological sciences Biological sciences, 1997-05, Vol.264 (1382), p.769-775
Main Authors:	Morris, J. S., Friston, K. J., Dolan, R. J.
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Adult Amygdala Amygdala - diagnostic imaging Amygdala - physiology Behavioral neuroscience Brain - diagnostic imaging Brain - physiology Brain Mapping Conditioning (Psychology) Emotional expression Emotions Face Facial expressions Fear Forebrain Happiness Humans Male Mental stimulation Oxygen Radioisotopes Positron emission tomography Prosencephalon - diagnostic imaging Prosencephalon - physiology Pulvinar Thalamus Thalamus - diagnostic imaging Thalamus - physiology Tomography, Emission-Computed Visual Perception
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Summary:	The neural mechanisms involved in the selective processing of salient or behaviourally important stimuli are uncertain. We used an aversive conditioning paradigm in human volunteer subjects to manipulate the salience of visual stimuli (emotionally expressive faces) presented during positron emission tomography (PET) neuroimaging. Increases in salience, and conflicts between the innate and acquired value of the stimuli, produced augmented activation of the pulvinar nucleus of the right thalamus. Furthermore, this pulvinar activity correlated positively with responses in structures hypothesized to mediate value in the brain-right amygdala and basal forebrain (including the cholinergic nucleus basalis of Meynert). The results provide evidence that the pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus plays a crucial modulatory role in selective visual processing, and that changes in perceptual salience are mediated by value-dependent plasticity in pulvinar responses.
ISSN:	0962-8452 1471-2954