The selection of information from cluttered sensory environments is one of the most fundamental cognitive operations performed by the primate brain. Classic studies of spatial attention assume that its neural and behavioral effects were continuous over time. In her talk, Dr. Kastner will challenge this notion. First, she will present behavioral evidence from humans and non-human primates that spatial attention leads to alternating periods of heightened or diminished perceptual sensitivity, even when sustained at a particular location in the visual field. Second, she will discuss the neural basis of these rhythmic fluctuations showing results from intracranial recordings in human epilepsy patients and non-human primates. A dynamic interplay within the frontoparietal attention network accounts for the rhythmic properties of spatial attention. Neural oscillations shape functional interactions between the frontal eye fields (FEF) and the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) that can be linked to functionally defined subpopulations of neurons. She uses this evidence to propose a novel model for selective attention that incorporates its rhythmic properties.

Sabine Kastner is a Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology in the Princeton Neuroscience Institute and Department of Psychology and serves as the Scientific Director of Princeton’s neuroimaging facility. Kastner earned an MD (1993) and PhD (1994) degree and received postdoctoral training at the Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry and NIMH before joining the faculty at Princeton University. She studies the neural basis of visual perception, attention, and awareness in the healthy, adult primate brain as well as in patients with brain lesions and during development. Kastner serves on several editorial boards and is a Senior Editor for Elife. Kastner engages in a number of outreach activities such as fostering the career of young women in science, promoting neuroscience in schools and public education (as chief editor of Frontiers for Young Minds – Understanding Neuroscience) and exploring the intersection of visual neuroscience and art.

Faculty Host: Michael E. Goldberg, MD, David Mahoney Professor of Brain and Behavior in Neuroscience and Neurology in Psychiatry and Ophthalmology; Principal Investigator at Columbia's Zuckerman Institute

For questions about the lecture, please contact [email protected].

Those who wish to meet the speaker during the visit should contact Whitney Thomas.

This seminar is part of the Systems, Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience Seminar Series at Columbia's Zuckerman Institute, which focuses on cognition and decision making research. Internationally renowned speakers present their recent work on these topics using behavioral, neurobiological and computational approaches. Seminars take place approximately every other week on Tuesdays at 4 pm in the Jerome L. Greene Science Center (9th floor).