The middle managers: thalamic and cholinergic contributions to coordinating top-down and bottom-up processing

Methodological advances have facilitated extensive revision of traditional views of thalamic and cholinergic contributions to cognition and behavior. Increasing attention to the integrative capabilities of the thalamus highlights its role beyond a simple sensory relay, recognizing its complex connectivity and role in orchestrating different phases of attention. Correspondingly, modern conceptualizations position the cholinergic system as key in integrating sensory information with attention and goals. These theoretical developments have occurred largely in parallel but have a large conceptual overlap. We review this overlap, including evidence from animal, patient, neuroimaging, and computational studies, and suggest that thalamo-cholinergic cognition plays a key role in coordinating stable and flexible attention.