Sabine Kastner - US grants

DESCRIPTION: (provided by applicant) The visual scenes we typically view are cluttered with many different objects. Attentional mechanisms are required to select relevant and to filter out irrelevant information. In non-human primates, single-cell recording studies have shown that attention enhances neural responses in visual cortex to attended stimuli as compared to the same stimuli when unattended. The mechanism by which attention enhances neural activity appears to be an increase in the neuron's gain. Several factors determine attentional response enhancement, including stimulus salience, the degree of competition among multiple stimuli for neural representation, the nature of the selection (if featural or spatial), and the expectations of the individual. In the human visual cortex, our previous studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have shown that attention enhances neural activity to visual stimuli, particularly in the presence of distracter stimuli, and even in the absence of any visual stimulation whatsoever. However, the mechanism by which attention enhances the gain of neural responses and the factors that determine the response modulation are not clear. The long-term objective of this application is to determine these basic attentional mechanisms operating in the human visual cortex with hypotheses derived from monkey physiology using fMRI. fMRI and behavioral studies are proposed to: 1) Determine the effects of attention on stimulus contrast; 2) Determine the relation of mechanisms for featural and spatial attention; and 3) Determine the nature of increases in baseline activity in the absence of visual stimulation. Attentional selection often falls in patients with attentional deficits, which are common in major neurologic disorders and psychiatric diseases. Therefore, it will be important to advance our knowledge of visual attention in healthy subjects in order to advance our understanding of the pathophysiology of attention and ultimately, to develop more efficient treatment for patients with attentional deficits.

Functional brain imaging and electrophysiological recording techniques have revolutionized the study of human brain function in cognitive neuroscience research. However, these methods are only able to provide correlational measures between localized neural activity and behavior. They do not themselves establish that any area is necessary for a particular task. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a technique that offers the unique possibility to create a transient virtual lesion by inducing cortical dysfunction in the intact human brain. TMS can disrupt cognitive processing for a few tens of milliseconds with spatial resolution in the order of a centimeter. Thereby, this technique allows the study of functionality of a given brain area in a cognitive process. TMS also has important clinical applications in the treatment of patients with severe depression. It has been shown that TMS improves the mood of some of these patients. Here, we request funds to establish a TMS laboratory at the Center for the Study of Brain, Mind, and Behavior (CSBMB) at Princeton University. We propose to use TMS in conjunction with other functional brain mapping techniques (fMRI and ERPs) that are already established in the laboratory facilities of the CSBMB. The use of TMS will greatly complement the other brain mapping techniques and strengthen the study of human brain function at the Center. A group of 6 scientists will implement the use of TMS into their ongoing research programs. The proposed projects include studies in cognitive neuroscience on the role of prefrontal cortex in cognitive control, on the neural mechanisms underlying conscious visual perception, and on the role of parietal and frontal cortex in visual attention. One project will probe the effects of TMS on hippocampal neurogenesis in an animal model to elucidate the neural basis of the antidepressant action of TMS.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The pulvinar is the largest nucleus in the primate thalamus and is considered a higher-order thalamic nucleus because it forms input-output loops almost exclusively with the cortex. From an anatomical perspective, the pulvinar is ideally positioned to regulate the transmission of information to the cortex and between cortical areas to influence perceptual and cognitive processes. However, experimental evidence in support of such a functional role has been sparse. The most compelling evidence for the pulvinar playing an important role in visual perception and cognition has come from lesion studies in humans and monkeys. These studies point to the critical involvement of the pulvinar in a number of fundamental cognitive functions, including orienting responses and the exploration of visual space, feature binding, and the filtering of unwanted information. The underlying neural correlates of these cognitive operations in the pulvinar are largely unclear. The proposed project aims at defining the role of the pulvinar in visual attention. The central hypothesis is that the pulvinar is an integral subcortical part of a large-scale network mediating the selection of behaviorally relevant information and that it operates by co-ordinating activity in cortical areas. By using an integrated multi-modal methods approach that includes functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and behavioral measures in humans and monkeys, and invasive electrophysiology in monkeys we will probe these ideas by pursuing two main aims: (i) to characterize the temporal dynamics of pulvino-cortical interactions by simultaneously recording from interconnected areas in macaque pulvinar and cortex in animals trained to perform a spatial attention task and (ii) to characterize the large-scale functional organization of the human pulvinar, which is largely uncharted brain territory, and its attention functions relative to cortical attention networks. The significance of the proposed research is that it will contribute to a better understanding of the pulvinar's role in a fundamental cognitive operation, selective attention, the impairment of which has devastating consequences on human health. Attentional deficits are frequently observed in neurological diseases (e.g. after stroke) leading to visuo-spatial neglect, an impairment in directing attention to contralesional visual space, as well as in psychiatric diseases (e.g. schizophrenia). Our proposed studies also aim at defining the pulvinar's role in integrating information from different cortical areas according to the behavioral context, which will help solve one of the deep mysteries in cognitive neuroscience, that is, to understand the functions of thalamo-cortical interactions in perception and cognition. !

The typical visual scenes that we view in everyday life are cluttered and contain numerous items that cannot all be processed at the same time. Only few visual objects are selected for further processing and reach the level of awareness. But what is the relationship between awareness and neural activity in the brain? The subjective nature of conscious perception has posed a serious problem to neuroscientists in approaching the study of the neural correlates of consciousness. However, in recent years, a few paradigms have been developed that promise to overcome some of these issues. With support of the National Science Foundation, Dr. Sabine Kastner and colleagues at Princeton University will study neural correlates of conscious perception using a binocular rivalry paradigm. In binocular rivalry, two incompatible stimuli (e.g. a face and a house) are presented to the two eyes, which leads to a competition for conscious perception such that only one image is visible at a time while the other one is suppressed from awareness. As a result, viewers perceive either the face or the house, but not both. Because the viewers' perceptual experiences change over time while the physical stimulus on the retina remains constant, binocular rivalry provides an intriguing paradigm to study the neural basis of visual awareness. Dr. Kastner will perform non-invasive functional brain imaging studies in humans and monkeys using a variety of rivalrous stimuli. These studies will identify the brain networks that are engaged during the conscious perception of visual information. The comparison of brain activations in humans and monkeys will provide important insights regarding conscious perception.

This work will result in a better understanding of one of the most fundamental issues in cognitive neuroscience, the neural substrates underlying conscious perception. The results of these studies may also be of interest to other fields outside neuroscience such as philosophy. The combination of neuroimaging in humans and monkeys is performed only in few laboratories in the world and offers a unique training opportunity for trainees at all levels of education, including undergraduate and graduate students. Results will be broadly disseminated through publications, public lectures and public databases to scientific as well as general public audiences.

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This study is designed to lay the groundwork for the development of an optimized strategy for motor rehabilitation after Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).TBI, often caused by traffic accidents, violence and falls, affects approximately 1.5 million Americans every year and is a common cause of death or disability among children and young adults. Here we propose to investigate the relationship between learning and rehabilitation by relating neuroimaging (functional MRI) measures with behavioral (performance) and anatomic (structural MRI, including DTI) measures in brain-injured patients and healthy controls. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The selection of relevant information from cluttered natural environments for further processing is one of the most fundamental cognitive abilities for guiding behavior. This becomes strikingly clear when attentional selection mechanisms fail, such as in individuals afflicted with ADHD, visuo-spatial hemineglect that is often observed following stroke, and schizophrenia. Converging evidence from physiology and functional brain imaging studies reveals that selective attention modulates neural activity at multiple processing stages within the visual system and beyond. This is a continuation project of our grant Mechanisms of attention in the human visual cortex (1 RO1-MH64043). Work during the previous funding period has characterized attentional functions of the human lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) and visual cortical areas. These and other studies indicate that visual selective attention can be considered a multilevel selection process mediated by a distributed network of subcortical and cortical brain areas. The present application extends this work to investigate interactions of neural processing between the visual system and the fronto-parietal attention network with hypotheses derived from biased competition theory. The long-term goal of this research program is to identify the neural mechanisms underlying visual selective attention in the primate brain. This goal is pursued in our laboratory in a multi-modal methods approach that includes functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and behavioral measures in humans and monkeys, and invasive electrophysiology in monkeys. In the present application, we focus on attention mechanisms operating in the human brain using innovative high- and super-resolution fMRI methods. We propose to study attentional modulation of the magno- and parvocellular LGN (SA #1), influences of perceptual organization on biased competition (SA #2), and higher-order control of selection (SA #3) across the neural architecture that subserves visual attention. The proposed research is aimed at advancing our understanding of the neural mechanisms and the network architecture that mediates attentional functions in the human brain. Progress in understanding the basic mechanisms of selective attention is a first necessary step in developing effective treatment strategies for attentional deficits.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The selection of relevant information from cluttered environments for further processing is one of the most fundamental cognitive abilities for guiding behavior. This becomes strikingly clear when attentional selection mechanisms fail, such as in individuals afflicted with ADHD, visuospatial hemineglect that is often observed after stroke, and schizophrenia. Converging evidence from physiology and functional brain imaging studies reveals that attentional selection occurs at multiple stages along the visual pathway. E.g. neural responses are modulated by spatially directed attention to a target location as early as in the lateral geniculate nucleus and at each successive visual processing stage. These modulatory influences appear to be generated by a network of higher-order areas in frontal and parietal cortex including the frontal eye fields and lateral intraparietal area (LIP). While much effort has been made towards an understanding of attentional mechanisms at the cortical level, the functional role of subcortical areas is poorly defined. There is evidence from human and macaque lesion studies that a large thalamic nucleus, the pulvinar, plays an important role in the selection process. The pulvinar is widely connected with fronto-parietal and visual cortex and is thus well positioned to influence communication across the cortex. However, very few physiology studies probing pulvinar activity during attentional selection tasks have been performed. The goal of the proposed research is to characterize attentional function in the pulvinar (SA #1) and to characterize how the pulvinar and cortex interact during attentional selection (SA #2). The central hypothesis is that the pulvinar coordinates activity in cortical areas, in order to regulate information transmission according to attentional requirements. To test this hypothesis, we will simultaneously record neural activity in the pulvinar and cortical area LIP, while monkeys perform a selective attention task. The proposed research is aimed at advancing our understanding of the neural mechanisms and the network interactions that mediate attentional functions in the primate brain. Progress in understanding the basic mechanisms of selective attention is a first necessary step in developing effective treatment strategies for attentional deficits. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This research is relevant to public health because it is expected to advance our understanding of neural mechanisms underlying selective attention, which is one of the most fundamental cognitive abilities for guiding behavior. This becomes strikingly clear when attentional selection mechanisms fail, such as in individuals afflicted with ADHD, visuo-spatial hemineglect that is often observed following stroke, and schizophrenia. Progress in understanding the basic mechanisms of selective attention is a first necessary step in developing effective treatment strategies for attentional deficits.

Humans have an amazing ability to visually identify a virtually limitless number of objects and to categorize them into classes such as faces, cars, or houses. We are capable of this feat despite the enormous variability in an object's appearance due to environmental factors such as distance, viewing angle, lighting, etc. With funding from the National Science Foundation, Sabine Kastner, Ph.D., of Princeton University is studying one of the major areas in the field of cognitive neuroscience, the neural mechanisms underlying efficient visual recognition. Object vision has long been associated with a specific part of the visual system, known as the 'ventral system.' Patients who suffer from damage to the ventral system often have deficits in recognizing objects. However, recently, a second system for the representation of object information has been found in a different part of the visual system, known as the 'dorsal system.' This finding suggests that object information might be represented in at least two parallel neural systems that likely serve different behavioral goals. In this project, several issues with regard to the dorsal object information system are being addressed by using brain imaging (functional magnetic resonance imaging; fMRI) on 3 types of participants: (1) healthy humans, (2) monkeys, and (3) patients with lesions of the ventral system. For the first part of the project, the researchers are studying the nature of the dorsal object information, and how it differs from the information represented in the ventral stream. For the second part of the project, they are studying whether the representation of object information in the dorsal system differs between humans and monkeys, perhaps, reflecting an evolutionary process to support complex human-specific behaviors (e.g., tool use). For the third part of the project, through the examination of patients, they are addressing the important question of whether the dorsal system depends on the ventral system, or whether it functions as an independent parallel object pathway. These objectives are being pursued by using virtually identical methods across different species and across different participant populations. The researchers hypothesize that the dorsal stream object processing system is unique to humans and has evolved to support sophisticated tool use.

While much research has been directed at object representations in the ventral system, this project focuses on object processing within the dorsal system, a vastly understudied aspect of object vision. Importantly, the approach using virtually identical methods across different species and participant populations can lead to rare insights into the evolution of cognition. The developments of sophisticated tool use and language functions are considered unique to humans. While much is known about the neural basis of language, the neural basis of tool use is not well understood. The results of this project are designed to fill this gap. The knowledge gained from this project is expected to be important for other disciplines, such as anthropology. Comparative studies in humans and monkeys using identical techniques and experimental designs are predicted to become increasingly important for the next generation of neuroscientists. Dr. Kastner's laboratory is one of very few in the world where the methods for such studies are used regularly. Therefore, the project provides a unique training opportunity for postdoctoral fellows, graduate and undergraduate students. The results are being used in Dr. Kastner's continued outreach program to public audiences and in local public schools. Such programs raise awareness and excitement about the importance of brain research, and demonstrate the interdisciplinary nature of modern neuroscience research to motivate young students to pursue scientific careers and help increase public support of basic science research.

One of the great challenges of cognitive neuroscience is to reveal the neural mechanisms underlying perceptual and cognitive processes that are utilized under naturalistic conditions. Selecting an object from a cluttered environment such as a natural scene presents a particularly complicated problem, since the exact location of the object is often unknown, and an object has an almost infinite number of visual appearances. Despite these challenges, the visual system has an extraordinary capability to extract categorical information quickly and efficiently from natural scenes (e.g. detecting cars when crossing a street). However, little is known about the neural mechanisms related to such real-world search. Dr. Sabine Kastner, Princeton University, will use complementary methodological approaches, including psychophysics, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and electrocorticography (ECoG) to address this gap by performing a series of three studies. Based on her recent findings, she hypothesizes that categorical selection from natural scenes is mediated through the formation of category-specific search templates, which are instantiated in visual cortex to facilitate processing of matching objects, but are generated through interactions with higher-order cortex. The goal of the project is to characterize such attentional search templates with respect to (i) their source, (ii) their temporal dynamics, and (iii) their featural or semantic content.

The selection of relevant information from cluttered natural environments for further processing is one of the most fundamental cognitive abilities for guiding behavior. This becomes strikingly clear when the attentional selection mechanisms fail, such as in individuals afflicted with attention-deficit disorder (ADHD), visuo-spatial hemineglect, which is often observed following stroke, and schizophrenia. Therefore, progress in understanding the neural mechanisms underlying attentional selection is essential. The project will shed light specifically on how we select visual information under the endlessly variable conditions of our natural environments, thereby transforming this area of research from laboratory conditions to the real world. Dr. Kastner's research program offers training opportunities for students at all levels of education including high school students. The project will also serve Dr. Kastner's continued outreach to K-12 science education through lectures and teacher collaboration as well her efforts to foster the early careers of female scientists. Finally, Dr. Kastner will participate in the big data sharing effort by making the data available to support efforts to make use of real data in the teaching of STEM-related courses and to enable participation in discovery science by those who would otherwise have no access to such data.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The visual environment contains more information than can be processed simultaneously. Due to this limited processing capacity of the visual system, it is necessary to select the behaviorally most relevant information for further processing and to filter out the unwanted information, a fundamental ability known as attentional selection. There is converging evidence from physiology studies in monkeys and neuroimaging studies in humans that attentional selection occurs at multiple stages along the visual pathway and is controlled by a network of higher-order areas in frontal and parietal cortex that includes the frontal eye fields (FEF) and the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) in the monkey and functionall similar areas in the human. In monkeys, physiology studies have begun to characterize the interactions across the network by simultaneously recording from two or more interconnected nodes of the attention network. One important result of these studies suggests that the strength of attentional modulation depends on the degree of neural synchrony between areas. In contrast, in humans, little is known about the temporal dynamics and functional interactions across areas of the attention network. Further, despite the macaque brain serving as prime model for a basic understanding of human brain function, it remains unclear how neural mechanisms related to perception and cognition compare across primate species. By recording intracranially from frontal and parietal cortex of monkeys and of epilepsy patients, who are chronically implanted with subdural grids for diagnostic purposes, while performing an identical spatial attention task we pursue two main goals in this project: (i) to characterize the temporal dynamics of the human attention network; and (ii) to compare electrophysiological signals related to spatial attention and obtained in functionally similar areas across primate species (monkey/human). The central hypothesis is that modulation of oscillatory activity plays an important functional role in spatial attention control and can predict behavioral outcome in both primate species. The significance of the proposed research is that it will contribute to our understanding of a fundamental cognitive operation, selective attention, the impairment of which has devastating consequences on human health. Attentional deficits are frequently observed in neurological diseases, e.g. after stroke, leading to visuo-spatial neglect, an impairment in directing attention to contralesional visual space, as well as in psychiatric diseases (e.g. schizophrenia). In addition, our proposed studies will be the first to directly compare human and macaque physiology, thereby connecting two different bodies of literature, i.e. EEG/fMRI and macaque electrophysiology.

? DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The natural environment is cluttered with stimuli and the brain has limited processing capacity. Attentional mechanisms are therefore needed to guide the selection of behaviorally relevant information. The present application is a competing renewal submission for our project Neural basis of visual attention (R01- MH64043-10). Work during the previous funding period used fMRI to characterize attention-related functions at multiple stages of the human attention network, including the thalamus and the fronto-parietal network. The present application extends this work, using electrophysiological recordings in humans and monkeys to investigate temporal dynamics and functional interactions across the attention network (both cortex and thalamus). Specifically, we aim to characterize the neural basis of object-based selective attention. Objects are typically the units of selection. When attention is spatially allocated to part of an object, an `attentional spotlight' (and the facilitaed processing associated with it) automatically expands to match the extent of the object's boundaries. That is, attention spreads to include task-irrelevant locations within the object. Classic attention theories assume that a unitary and indivisible spatial mechanism mediates such object-based selection. However, recent evidence challenges this characterization. First, the attentional spotlight, rather than being sustained, flashes rhythmically, sampling the visual environment at frequencies in the theta band (4-8Hz), with alternating temporal windows of relatively enhanced and diminished processing. Second, our behavioral studies from the previous grant cycle support the existence of two spatial mechanisms, concurrently sampling the visual scene: (i) a fixed spotlight that rhythmically samples the most relevant location, and (ii) a moving spotlight that rhythmically monitors less relevant locations. The present project wil challenge classic models of attention by investigating the neural basis of rhythmic selective processing within the framework of object- based attention. By recording from multiple nodes of the attention network in humans and macaques (using the same attention task for both species), we will probe the central hypothesis that attentional selection is a highly dynamic process that operates concurrently at multiple locations. In humans, we will obtain intracranial recordings in epilepsy patients (i.e., electrocorticography [ECoG]). In macaques, we will simultaneously record from interconnected regions of FEF, LIP, area V4, and the pulvinar. Specifically, we will (i) investigate a dissociation of function between FEF and posterior PPC, (ii test the functional role of the pulvinar in coordinating temporal dynamics across cortical network nodes and (iii) relate neural signals, including oscillatory activity, to rhythmic behavior. Impairments of attentional selection have devastating consequences on human health (e.g., after stroke, and in diseases, such as schizophrenia). The significance of the proposed research is that it will probe potentially paradigm-shifting hypotheses using an innovative approach that combines cutting edge neuroimaging techniques with intracranial electrophysiology in two primate species.

Active exploration (Active Sensing) in the visual domain uses two different processes: overt exploration that occurs about 3-5 times per second via moving the eyes, and covert search utilizing a `spotlight' that continuously scans the visual scene by moving to new locations at a rate of up to 20 times per second. While overt exploration is considered a rhythmic behavior, the spotlight of attention utilized during covert search has traditionally been characterized as a single sustained spatial mechanism. Recent behavioral evidence has called this concept into question.!First, the attentional spotlight, rather than being sustained, flashes rhythmically, sampling the visual environment at frequencies in the theta band (4-8Hz), with alternating temporal windows of relatively enhanced and diminished processing. Second, our recent behavioral work supports the existence of two spatial mechanisms, concurrently sampling the visual scene: (i) a fixed spotlight that rhythmically samples the most relevant location, and (ii) a moving spotlight that rhythmically monitors less relevant locations. Thus, covert attention used during Active Sensing may fall into the class of rhythmic behaviors just like its overt counterpart. In this project, we will investigate the neural basis of rhythmic covert attention and relate it to neuronal oscillatory rhythms underlying overt search by recording simultaneously from multiple nodes of the network utilized during visual exploration in monkeys trained in both covert and overt attention tasks. In Experiment 1, we will use laminar multielectrodes to simultaneously record laminar profiles from area V4 and FEF and from their interconnected zone in the pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus. Monkeys will be trained on a visual threshold detection task that parametrically examines rhythmic sampling from a location at which attention is sustained as well as rhythmic monitoring of one or two locations outside the focus of attention. We will specifically emphasize rhythmic cortico-cortical intra-areal interactions and the influence of the pulvinar in mediating communication between cortical areas. In Experiment 2, we will record from these areas while monkeys are engaged in an overt search task to detect visual objects; this task will be combined with the visual detection task that induces rhythmic sampling at an attended location used in Experiment 1 to directly compare mechanisms utilized during overt and covert search. We will also obtain ECoG signals from low impedance electrodes placed over the two cortical areas to relate these signals to the laminar profile acquired simultaneously. Such comparison will be beneficial for interpreting results from Project 1 that proposes to use similar tasks in human ECoG studies. Our findings, and those of Project 4, which uses similar tasks and recording methods to study auditory Active Sensing, will feed data to biophysical cellular- circuit modeling in Project 5. Across the Center, our studies will aim at establishing a neural basis for rhythmic overt and covert explorative behavior in the visual and auditory domains, and at constructing robust models that represent Active Sensing' s neuronal substrates at local circuit and brain network scales.

The visual thalamus has been extensively studied in terms of its anatomical organization, connectivity patterns, and basic neural response properties. However, its role in perception and cognition has remained poorly understood. The present application is a competing renewal submission for our grant ?Functions of the thalamus in perception and cognition? (RO1-EY017699). Work during the previous funding period has (i) characterized the topographic organization and functional response properties of the human pulvinar using high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and (ii) defined a functional role of the macaque pulvinar in spatial selective attention using simultaneous multi-site recordings. The present application extends this work to investigate a causal role for the macaque pulvinar in attentional control. The pulvinar is the largest nucleus in the primate thalamus and is considered a higher-order thalamic nucleus, because it forms input- output loops almost exclusively with the cortex. From an anatomical perspective, the pulvinar is ideally positioned to regulate the transmission of information to the cortex and between cortical areas to influence perceptual and cognitive processes. Evidence from lesion studies in humans and monkeys demonstrate a critical involvement of the pulvinar in a number of fundamental cognitive functions, including orienting responses and the exploration of visual space, the filtering of unwanted information, and visually-guided behavior. Our studies during the last funding cycle have begun to establish neural correlates that may underlie some of these cognitive functions. We showed that the indirect pulvino-cortical connectivity appears to facilitate information transfer between areas in visual cortex. The proposed project will extend this work by probing the hypothesis that the pulvinar is an integral subcortical part of a large-scale attentional control network. Using a multi-modal methods approach that includes simultaneous multi-site recordings, neuroimaging, and reversible inactivation in monkeys trained on an Eriksen flanker task, we will pursue three specific aims. First, we will systematically characterize attentional modulation and functional interactions across pulvinar subdivisions by simultaneously recording from dozens of single- and multi-units using linear microelectrode arrays. Second, we will probe the idea that the pulvinar coordinates interactions within the fronto-parietal attention control network, thus acting as a temporal coordinator, by simultaneously recording from FEF, LIP and their interconnected projection zone in dorsal pulvinar. And third, we will probe a causal role for the pulvinar in attentional control. By reversibly inactivating dorsal pulvinar under MR-guidance and performing simultaneous recordings from FEF and LIP in our spatial attention task we will investigate local effects and interactions across the fronto- parietal network in relation to behavior. The significance of the proposed research is that it will further our understanding of the functions of thalamo-cortical interactions in perception and cognition using an innovative approach that combines cutting edge neuroimaging techniques with intracranial electrophysiology.

The field of Cognitive Neuroscience has expanded by leaps and bounds over the past 20 years - the number of yearly publications has increased 20-fold over these two decades. Bringing the Cognitive Neuroscience community together for focused and in-depth discussion of cutting edge research every two years is incredibly valuable (the 2020 Gordon Conference was not held because of the pandemic). Meanwhile there has also been an explosion of information in molecular, cellular, circuit and systems neuroscience but little of that information has made significant inroads into our understanding of cognitive function. This Gordon Research Conference on the Neurobiology of Cognition should help bridge the gap, at the very least by identifying the avenues for connection that have the most potential for near-term traction and by linking scientist from disparate fields.

The Gordon conference (GRS and GRC) will take place in July, 2022. The emphasis of the workshop is to facilitate in-depth discussion between scientists working in divergent fields whose integration is essential to understanding the neurobiology of cognition. NSF support will enable graduate students and postdoctoral trainees and early investigators to participate in this high-profile workshop and will allow early stage investigators (non-tenured) to attend as speakers and full participants. Trainee fellowships to cover travel and registration expenses will be preferentially given to women and under-represented minorities in order to enhance diversity in the field of cognitive neuroscience.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.