To measure synchrony between FEF and V4, we used multitaper spectral methods to compute coherence between spikes from well isolated single units in the FEF and local field potentials (LFPs) in V4. First taking all types of FEF cells together, we found that spike-field coherence
in the gamma frequency range was significantly enhanced between FEF and V4 when attention was directed inside the joint RF (Figure 5A; coherence averaged between 35 and 60 Hz; paired t test p < 0.001). At the population level gamma band coherence increased by 13%. This result confirms and extends findings from our recent study based on multi-unit activity that demonstrated enhanced neural synchrony between FEF and V4 with attention (Gregoriou et al., 2009a). After subdividing the coherence spectra in FEF by cell class, the PCI 32765 results showed that visual, visuomovement, and movement neurons display distinct FEF-V4 coherence selleck chemical profiles. Coherence between the spikes of purely visual FEF neurons and LFPs in V4 showed a 16% enhancement with attention in the gamma range and this increase was statistically significant (Figure 5B; 35–60 Hz, paired t test, p < 0.001).
In agreement with our previous results we found that the distribution of the average (between 35 and 60 Hz) relative phase between FEF spikes and V4 LFPs had a median close to half a gamma Sermorelin (Geref) cycle (attend-in condition; median = 176°, Rayleigh test, p < 0.001). This phase shift corresponds to a time delay of ∼10 ms between spikes in the FEF and the phase of maximum depolarization in the V4 LFP, and we have previously suggested that a 10 ms time delay is needed to account for conduction and synaptic delays between the two areas (Gregoriou et al., 2009a). Spike-field coherence between FEF neurons with saccade-related activity (visuomovement and movement neurons) and V4 LFPs did not display any significant gamma band modulation with attention (Figures 5C and 5D; paired t test, visuomovement cells: p = 0.22, 7% increase; movement cells, p = 0.87; 1%
decrease with attention). For a distribution of attentional effects in gamma coherence see Figure S3. The attentional enhancement of gamma coherence was significantly different across the three FEF cell classes (Kruskal-Wallis, p < 0.001). Coherence between visual FEF cells and V4 LFPs was significantly enhanced relative to that between visuomovement or movement FEF cells and V4 (Tukey-Kramer, p < 0.001 for both pair comparisons), whereas attentional effects on FEF-V4 coherence were not significantly different for visuomovement and movement FEF cells (Tukey-Kramer, p = 0.69). We also confirmed that the absence of gamma coherence modulation with attention between FEF movement neurons and V4 cannot be attributed to low firing rate (see Supplemental Information).