RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Theta Oscillations Organize Spiking Activity in Higher-Order Visual Thalamus during Sustained Attention JF eneuro JO eNeuro FD Society for Neuroscience SP ENEURO.0384-17.2018 DO 10.1523/ENEURO.0384-17.2018 VO 5 IS 1 A1 Chunxiu Yu A1 Yuhui Li A1 Iain M. Stitt A1 Zhe Charles Zhou A1 Kristin K. Sellers A1 Flavio Frohlich YR 2018 UL http://www.eneuro.org/content/5/1/ENEURO.0384-17.2018.abstract AB Higher-order visual thalamus plays a fundamental but poorly understood role in attention-demanding tasks. To investigate how neuronal dynamics in higher-order visual thalamus are modulated by sustained attention, we performed multichannel electrophysiological recordings in the lateral posterior-pulvinar complex (LP/pulvinar) in the ferret (Mustela putorius furo). We recorded single unit activity and local field potential (LFP) during the performance of the five-choice serial reaction time task (5-CSRTT), which is used in both humans and animals as an assay of sustained attention. We found that half of the units exhibited an increasing firing rate during the delay period before stimulus onset (attention-modulated units). In contrast, the non-attention-modulated units responded to the stimulus, but not during the delay period. Spike-field coherence (SFC) of only the attention-modulated neurons significantly increased from the start of the delay period until screen touch, predominantly in the θ frequency band. In addition, θ power and θ/γ phase amplitude coupling (PAC) were elevated throughout the delay period. Our findings suggest that the θ oscillation plays a central role in orchestrating thalamic signaling during sustained attention.