The Emotional Gatekeeper: A Computational Model of Attentional Selection and Suppression through the Pathway from the Amygdala to the Inhibitory Thalamic Reticular Nucleus
Fig 11
A, B, Time evolution of the activity of the sensory cortical neurons corresponding to the target stimulus S1 (blue lines) and to the target stimulus S2 (pink lines) in the short lag (C) or long lag (D) condition. C, D, Presence of stimuli S1 (blue) and S2 (pink), separated by a short (A) or long (B) lag. The stimulus S1 was previously paired with an aversive US. If the time lag between the salient stimulus S1 and the target stimulus S2 is short (A, C), S1 causes suppression of representations of S2 via the amygdala-TRN pathway. If the time lag between the salient stimulus S1 and the target stimulus S2 is long (B, D), the inhibition triggered by S1 does not persist long enough to suppress S2. A stimulus is assumed to be detected if its cortical representation (A, B) crosses the variable detection threshold (black lines). Five detection trials out of a total of twenty are shown. The detection success rate for the short lag was 10%, and for the long lag was 100%. In all subplots the x-axis represents time and the y-axis represents amplitude.