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Updated: May 11, 2026

Measurement of Neurophysiological Signals of Ignoring and Attending Processes in Attention Control
Published on: July 5, 2015
Selective modulation of cortical state during spatial attention
Tatiana A Engel1,2, Nicholas A Steinmetz3, Marc A Gieselmann4
1Departments of Bioengineering and Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA. tatiana.engel@stanford.edu.
Abstract:
Neocortical activity is permeated with endogenously generated fluctuations, but how these dynamics affect goal-directed behavior remains a mystery. We found that ensemble neural activity in primate visual cortex spontaneously fluctuated between phases of vigorous (On) and faint (Off) spiking synchronously across cortical layers. These On-Off dynamics, reflecting global changes in cortical state, were also modulated at a local scale during selective attention. Moreover, the momentary phase of local ensemble activity predicted behavioral performance. Our results show that cortical state is controlled locally within a cortical map according to cognitive demands and reveal the impact of these local changes in cortical state on goal-directed behavior.
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