From perception to action: Intracortical recordings reveal cortical gradients of human exogenous attention

<jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title><jats:p>Exogenous attention, the process that makes external salient stimuli pop-out of a visual scene, is essential for survival. How attention-capturing events modulate processing dynamics in the human brain remains elusive. We obtained a comprehensive depiction of attentional cortical dynamics at high spatiotemporal resolution, by analyzing brain activity from 1,403 intracortical contacts implanted in 28 individuals, while they performed an exogenous attention task. The timing, location and task-relevance of attentional events defined a spatiotemporal continuum of three neural clusters, which mapped onto cortical core-periphery gradients. Attentional effects emerged at the gradient center, where neural activity reflected both visual input and motor output. These results reveal how large-scale neural ensembles, embedded in the cortical hierarchy, underlie the psychological construct of exogenous attention in the human brain.</jats:p>