Perceptual sensitivity varies from moment to moment. One potential source of this variability is spontaneous fluctuations in cortical activity that can travel as waves1. Spontaneous travelling waves have been reported during anaesthesia2-7, but it is not known whether they have a role during waking perception. Here, using newly developed analytic techniques to characterize the moment-to-moment dynamics of noisy multielectrode data, we identify spontaneous waves of activity in the extrastriate visual cortex of awake, behaving marmosets (Callithrix jacchus). In monkeys trained to detect faint visual targets, the timing and position of spontaneous travelling waves before target onset predicted the magnitude of target-evoked activity and the likelihood of target detection. By contrast, spatially disorganized fluctuations of neural activity were much less predictive. These results reveal an important role for spontaneous travelling waves in sensory processing through the modulation of neural and perceptual sensitivity.

中文翻译：

---

灵长类动物的自发行进皮层波门感知

感知敏感度随时变化。这种可变性的一个潜在来源是皮质活动的自发波动，可以作为波传播1。据报道，在麻醉期间会出现自发行波 2-7，但尚不清楚它们是否在清醒知觉中起作用。在这里，我们使用新开发的分析技术来表征嘈杂的多电极数据的瞬间动态，我们在清醒的行为狨猴（Callithrix jacchus）的纹外视觉皮层中识别出自发的活动波。在被训练检测微弱视觉目标的猴子中，目标出现前自发行波的时间和位置预测了目标诱发活动的幅度和目标检测的可能性。相比之下，空间混乱的神经活动波动的预测性要低得多。这些结果揭示了自发行波通过调节神经和知觉敏感性在感觉处理中的重要作用。