Human visual event-related potentials (ERPs) and the electroencephalogram (EEG) measure a variety of different cognitive operations during visual processing. Visual ERPs and EEG are vital tools in diagnosing and studying neurological and psychopathological disorders, in addition to revealing how the health brain turns visual inputs into appropriate responses. However, it is not possible to definitively determine what brain areas generate specific ERP components and EEG oscillations related to deploying visual attention, visual working memory storage, and monitoring task performance. The renewal of this project will support our work localizing the sources of ERP components and oscillatory signatures elicited during the performance of visual tasks using both humans and nonhuman primates. In the latter we will record noninvasive ERPs and EEG simultaneously with intracranial recordings of local field potentials. Preliminary evidence from monkeys and humans performing identical visual tasks demonstrates homology between human and macaque ERP components and the modulation of specific frequency bands in the EEG providing indices of the deployment of visual attention, the storage of visual information in visual working memory, and performance monitoring. By concurrently studying humans and monkeys this project will allow clinicians and health researchers to use the visually and response evoked EEG activity and ERP components recorded noninvasively from humans to access whether specific brain regions are functioning properly and also to develop animal models of specific disorders. Relevance to public health: The overall goal of this research program is to perform comparative studies of humans and monkeys using common electrophysiological measures. Then, to develop techniques to determine whether nonhuman primates exhibit electrophysiological oscillations and event-related potentials indexing the same cognitive processes as those used to study mental and other health disorders in humans. Our previous work demonstrates that these common electrophysiological measures exist and the present project will use humans and monkeys to determine where in the brain these potentials are generated. These methods will provide a way for health researchers to develop animal models of human health disorders, discover underlying causes, and test potential treatments.

Public Health Relevance

This project will measure visual event-related potentials (ERPs) and modulations of the electroencephalogram (EEG) in humans and nonhuman primates to establish whether homologous electrophysiological indices of visual information processing exist across primate species. The neural generators of the homologous activity will then be localized in the brains of the monkeys to test models derived from human data and establish the neural substrates of noninvasively recorded visual ERPs and EEG.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Eye Institute (NEI)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01EY019882-06
Application #
8843863
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1)
Program Officer
Flanders, Martha C
Project Start
2009-12-01
Project End
2018-04-30
Budget Start
2015-05-01
Budget End
2016-04-30
Support Year
6
Fiscal Year
2015
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
004413456
City
Nashville
State
TN
Country
United States
Zip Code
37240
Cosman, Joshua D; Lowe, Kaleb A; Zinke, Wolf et al. (2018) Prefrontal Control of Visual Distraction. Curr Biol 28:414-420.e3
Servant, Mathieu; Cassey, Peter; Woodman, Geoffrey F et al. (2018) Neural bases of automaticity. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 44:440-464
Cosman, Joshua D; Lowe, Kaleb A; Zinke, Wolf et al. (2018) Prefrontal Control of Visual Distraction. Curr Biol 28:1330
Rugo, Kelsi F; Tamler, Kendall N; Woodman, Geoffrey F et al. (2017) Recognition-induced forgetting of faces in visual long-term memory. Atten Percept Psychophys 79:1878-1885
Fukuda, Keisuke; Woodman, Geoffrey F (2017) Visual working memory buffers information retrieved from visual long-term memory. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 114:5306-5311
Reinhart, Robert M G; Cosman, Josh D; Fukuda, Keisuke et al. (2017) Using transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) to understand cognitive processing. Atten Percept Psychophys 79:3-23
Cosman, Joshua D; Arita, Jason T; Ianni, Julianna D et al. (2016) Electrophysiological measurement of information flow during visual search. Psychophysiology 53:535-43
Reinhart, Robert M G; McClenahan, Laura J; Woodman, Geoffrey F (2016) Attention's Accelerator. Psychol Sci 27:790-8
Fukuda, Keisuke; Kang, Min-Suk; Woodman, Geoffrey F (2016) Distinct neural mechanisms for spatially lateralized and spatially global visual working memory representations. J Neurophysiol 116:1715-1727
Reinhart, Robert M G; Xiao, Wenxi; McClenahan, Laura J et al. (2016) Electrical Stimulation of Visual Cortex Can Immediately Improve Spatial Vision. Curr Biol 26:1867-72

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