Visual attention information can be traced on cortical response but not
  on the retina: evidence from electrophysiological mouse data using natural
  images as stimuli
Nikos Melanitis Konstantina Nikita
Visual attention forms the basis of understanding the visual world. In this
work we follow a computational approach to investigate the biological basis of
visual attention. We analyze retinal and cortical electrophysiological data
from mouse. Visual Stimuli are Natural Images depicting real world scenes. Our
results show that in primary visual cortex (V1), a subset of around $10\%$ of
the neurons responds differently to salient versus non-salient visual regions.
Visual attention information was not traced in retinal response. It appears
that the retina remains naive concerning visual attention; cortical response
gets modulated to interpret visual attention information. Experimental animal
studies may be designed to further explore the biological basis of visual
attention we traced in this study. In applied and translational science, our
study contributes to the design of improved visual prostheses systems --
systems that create artificial visual percepts to visually impaired individuals
by electronic implants placed on either the retina or the cortex.