Synchronization as a mechanism for attentional gain modulation

Responses of neurons in monkey visual cortex are modulated when attention is directed into the receptive field of the neuron: the gain or sensitivity of the response is increased or the synchronization of the spikes to the local field potential (LFP) is increased. We investigated, using model simulations, whether the synchrony of inhibitory networks could link these observations. We found that, indeed, an increase in inhibitory synchrony could enhance the coherence of the model neurons with the simulated LFP, and could have different effects on the firing rate. When the firing rate vs. current (f-I) response curves saturated at high I, attention yielded a shift in sensitivity; alternatively, when the f-I curves were non-saturating, the most significant effect was on the gain of the response. This suggests that attention may act through changes in the synchrony of inhibitory networks.