DOCSLIB.ORG

Anatomy of Attentional Networks

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Anatomy of Attentional Networks THE ANATOMICAL RECORD (PART B: NEW ANAT.) 281B:21–36, 2004 FEATURE ARTICLE Anatomy of Attentional Networks AMIR RAZ Attention is a central theme in psychological science. As with other biological systems, attention has a distinct anatomy that carries out basic psychological functions. Disparate attentional networks correlate with discrete neural circuitry and can be influenced by specific brain injuries, states, and drugs. Accordingly, thinking about attention as an organ system is advantageous for understanding the details of this complex cognitive process. In the context of an influential model of attention, this article introduces the broad notion of attention, then addresses its prominent characteristics, mechanisms, and theories. The presentation emphasizes the role of recent neuroimaging data in outlining the functional neuroanatomy subserving distinct attentional networks. A discussion of pertinent results connects attentional networks with self-regulation, development, and rehabilitation training. Anat Rec (Part B: New Anat) 281B:21–36, 2004. © 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc. KEY WORDS: attentional networks; imaging; neuroimaging; cognitive control; neuroscience; hemispheres INTRODUCTION one out of what seem several simulta- plying formal information theory, neous objects or trains of thought.” Broadbent likened attention to a filter. One of the oldest and most central James’ account strongly joins atten- He proposed that attention was issues in psychological science, atten- tion with subjective experience. More- bounded by the amount of informa- tion is the process of selecting for ac- over, James’s addressing of attention tive processing ideas stored in mem- tion located between parallel sensory both to objects and to “trains of ory in our minds, or aspects of our systems and a limited-capacity per- thought” is important for understand- physical environment, such as ob- ceptual system (Broadbent, 1958). ing current approaches to sensory ori- jects. The study of attention has be- This view facilitated objective studies enting and executive control (Driver come a huge enterprise; last year of the limitations of the human ability and Frackowiak, 2001; Fernandez- alone about 300 articles were pub- to deal with multiple signals at a time Duque and Posner, 2001; Fan et al., lished on attention (Fig. 1). Through- in a variety of practical tasks. 2003a,b). However, as outlined below, out history, many great minds have As psychology moved toward the wrestled with the definition of atten- study of cognitive mechanisms, new tion. In 370 B.C., Aristotle regarded objective methods allowed for inves- attention as a narrowing of the senses. tigation into the processes of selec- Centuries later, William James (1890) Attention is not, as the tion. For example, studies showed contended that “everyone knows what quote from William that words could activate their se- attention is. It is the taking possession mantic associates without aware- of the mind in clear and vivid form of James implies, the same ness of the word’s identity (i.e., as being aware. priming). The parallel organization of sensory information extends to se- Dr. Raz is on the faculty of the MRI Unit mantic processing. The act of select- in the Department of Psychiatry, Divi- ing a word meaning for active atten- sion of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, at Columbia University College of Phy- attention in the sense of orienting to tion appears to suppress the sicians and Surgeons and New York sensory objects can actually be invol- availability of other meanings of the State Psychiatric Institute. untary and can occur unconsciously. selected item and of competing *Correspondence to: Amir Raz, MRI Unit, Department of Psychiatry, Division So attention is not, as the quote from items. Consequently, attention has of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Co- William James implies, the same as since been viewed more as a mecha- lumbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and New York State Psy- being aware (see Table 1 for a list of nism for providing priority for mo- chiatric Institute, 1051 Riverside Drive, important terms and definitions in tor acts than as a filter or bottleneck. Box 74, New York, NY 10032. Fax: 212- this field of study). For example, the premotor theory 543-6660; E-mail: [email protected] Following a lull in the field during suggests that attention is simply a DOI 10.1002/ar.b.20035 the early 1900s, Donald Broadbent re- preparation for response, or a select- Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). sumed the quest after World War II to ing of the goal of an intended action discover attentional mechanisms. Ap- (Rizzolatti et al., 1987). The focus on © 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc. 22 THE ANATOMICAL RECORD (PART B: NEW ANAT.) FEATURE ARTICLE tion. These similar and demanding GROSS CHARACTERISTICS OF tasks can at first only be done in alter- ATTENTION nation, but after months of practice can be efficiently combined (Spelke et al., Visual attention often serves as a con- 1976). Given these examples, theories venient lens to examine the character- of attentional limits must also account istics of attention. Researchers and for how these limits can be eliminated clinicians have investigated the optics, (e.g., following practice) when the bot- anatomy, development, pathology, tleneck is seemingly bypassed and the and underlying neural processes of vi- correct action is effortlessly performed. sion, making it the most widely stud- TABLE 1. Terms and definitions related to attentional network research Figure 1. Research into Attention. Relative Foveate To look at directly so the image being viewed numbers of publications for each of five key falls on the fovea of the retina words, normalized to their relative frequen- Attention The mental ability to select stimuli, responses, cies in the 1960-1969 decade. The 2000 memories, and thoughts that are data span only the years 2000 to 2003. The behaviorally relevant among a host of others relative frequency values were computed by adding up all the papers that used each that are behaviorally irrelevant of these keywords in 1960–1969 in PubMed Attentional networks Neural circuits subserving attentional and finding the proportion using each key- processing, which preserve a degree of word. These were the base proportions. The anatomical and functional independence relative proportions were then the propor- but interact in many practical situations tions in each subsequent decade divided Executive network The mechanism for monitoring and resolving by the original proportions from 1960–1969. conflict among thoughts, feelings, and From Cavanagh (2003, 2004). responses; an attentional system concerned with such tasks as working memory, response may explain why atten- planning, switching, and inhibitory control tional systems seem to differ for Orienting The process of selecting information from sensory input space that is within reach and space Alerting The process of achieving and maintaining a that lies beyond. However, intended state of high sensitivity to incoming stimuli actions are probably not the only Top-down A downstream effect such as cognitive sources of capacity limits and atten- modulation control, as opposed to a bottom-up effect tional selection. After all, even when Cognitive control Processes such as conflict resolution, error we have no intention to act and pas- correction, inhibitory control, planning, and sively watch scenes go by (e.g., at the resource allocation movies), we still select only a subset Self-regulation A key mediator between genetic of the information that reaches the predisposition, early experience, and adult senses. Attention, therefore, was fur- functioning (e.g., in controlling the reaction to stress, the capacity to maintain focused ther operationalized as facilitating attention or the ability to interpret mental some kinds of memory and even states both internally and in others) consciousness. Neuroimaging Technologically advanced, often noninvasive, Other views construe attention in tools for tapping neurophysiological aspects the context of resource limitation/ of the behaving brain selection. Attentional limits are typ- Mismatch negativity An electrophysiological manifestation of ically found in unpracticed tasks. (MMN) involuntary preattentive processing occurring However, with practice, most atten- when some regularity in the auditory stream tion-demanding tasks can be ren- is violated by a change (deviant stimulus); dered attention-independent, or au- the MMN is advantageous with regard to the neural processing of unattended input tomatized. One example of this Anterior cingulate Part of the brain’s limbic system classically phenomenon involves visually cortex (ACC) related to affect but also active in many searching for a set of letters among studies of cognition; the ACC might be the other random letters. This task ini- brain’s error detection and correction tially demands attention and gives device part of a circuit involved in a form of steep slopes of latencies against dis- attention that serves to regulate both play size. However, after weeks of cognitive and emotional processing practice, the slopes become flat Functional magnetic A noninvasive neuroimaging technique that (Spelke et al., 1976; Schneider and resonance registers blood flow to functioning areas of Shiffrin, 1977). Another example imaging (fMRI) the brain in high magnetic fields Positron emission A neuroimaging technique measuring the flow comes from a demonstration involv- tomography (PET) of blood containing
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Relationship Between Language Proficiency and Attentional Control
    University at Albany, State University of New York Scholars Archive Psychology Faculty Scholarship Psychology 9-2014 The relationship between language proficiency and attentional control in Cantonese-English bilingual children: Evidence from Simon, Simon Switching, and working memory tasks Jeanette Altarriba University at Albany, State University of New York, [email protected] Chi-Shing Tse The Chinese University of Hong Kong Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/psychology_fac_scholar Part of the Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Altarriba, Jeanette and Tse, Chi-Shing, "The relationship between language proficiency and attentional control in Cantonese-English bilingual children: Evidence from Simon, Simon Switching, and working memory tasks" (2014). Psychology Faculty Scholarship. 1. https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/psychology_fac_scholar/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Psychology at Scholars Archive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Psychology Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Scholars Archive. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE published: 03 September 2014 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00954 The relationship between language proficiency and attentional control in Cantonese-English bilingual children: evidence from Simon, Simon switching, and working memory tasks Chi-Shing Tse 1* and Jeanette Altarriba 2 1 Department of Educational Psychology, The Chinese University of
    [Show full text]
  • Neural Measures of Visual Attention and Suppression As Biomarkers for ADHD- Associated Inattention
    Neural Measures of Visual Attention and Suppression as Biomarkers for ADHD- associated Inattention Rebecca Elizabeth Townley PhD University of York Psychology August 2019 Abstract Abstract Whilst there is a wealth of literature examining neural differences in those with ADHD, few have investigated visual-associated regions. Given extensive evidence demonstrating visual-attention deficits in ADHD, it is possible that inattention problems may be associated with functional abnormalities within the visual system. By measuring neural responses across the visual system during visual-attentional tasks, we aim to explore the relationship between visual processing and ADHD-associated Inattention in the typically developed population. We first explored whether differences in neural responses occurred within the superior colliculus (SC); an area linked to distractibility and attention. Here we found that Inattention traits positively correlated with SC activity, but only when distractors were presented in the right visual field (RVF) and not the left visual field (LVF). Our later work followed up on these findings to investigate separate responses towards task-relevant targets and irrelevant, peripheral distractors. Findings showed that those with High Inattention exhibited increased responses towards distractors compared to targets, while those with Low Inattention showed the opposite effect. Hemifield differences were also observed where those with High Inattention showed increased RVF distractor-related signals compared to those with Low Inattention. No differences were observed for the LVF. Finally, we examined attention and suppression-related neural responses. Our results indicated that, while attentional responses were similar between Inattention groups, those with High Inattention showed weaker suppression responses towards the unattended RVF. No differences were found when suppressing the LVF.
    [Show full text]
  • The Emotional Stroop Effect in Anxiety Disorders General Emotionality Or Disorder Specificity?
    Anxiety Disorders 15 Q2001) 147±159 The emotional Stroop effect in anxiety disorders General emotionality or disorder specificity? Eni S. Beckera,*, Mike Rincka, JuÈrgen Margraf a, Walton T. Rothb aTU, Dresden, Germany bVA Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA, USA Received 8 January 1999; received in revised form 22 April 1999; accepted 15 October 1999 Abstract Selective attentional biases, often documented with a modified Stroop task, are considered to play an important role in the etiology and maintenance of anxiety. Two competing explanations for these effects are selectivity for highly emotional words in general vs. selectivity for disorder-specific words. We tested these explanations in 32 patients with generalized anxiety disorder QGAD), 29 patients with social phobia QSP), and 31 non-anxious controls. Stimuli were of four kinds: GAD-related words, SP-related words, words with a neutral valence, and words with a positive valence. Different attentional biases were observed: GAD patients were slowed by all types of emotional words, while SP patients were distracted specifically by speech-related words. D 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Attention; Generalized anxiety disorder; Social phobia; Stroop task 1. Introduction Cognitive models of anxiety have received increasing empirical support over the past decade Qe.g., Barlow 1988; Beck, Emery, & Greenberg, 1985; 1992). * Corresponding author. Department of Clinical Psychology, Dresden University of Technology, D-01062 Dresden, Germany. E-mail address: [email protected] QE.S. Becker). 0887-6185/01/$ ± see front matter D 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. PII: S0887-6185Q01)00055-X 148 E.S.
    [Show full text]
  • The Playing Brain. the Impact of Video Games on Cognition and Behavior in Pediatric Age at the Time of Lockdown: a Systematic Review
    Review The Playing Brain. The Impact of Video Games on Cognition and Behavior in Pediatric Age at the Time of Lockdown: A Systematic Review Daniela Smirni * , Elide Garufo, Luca Di Falco and Gioacchino Lavanco Department of Psychology, Educational Science and Human Movement, University of Palermo, 90128 Palermo, Italy; [email protected] (E.G.); [email protected] (L.D.F.); [email protected] (G.L.) * Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +39-09123897748 Abstract: A growing number of children and adolescents play video games (VGs) for long amounts of time. The current outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic has significantly reduced outdoor activities and direct interpersonal relationships. Therefore, a higher use of VGs can become the response to stress and fear of illness. VGs and their practical, academic, vocational and educational implications have become an issue of increasing interest for scholars, parents, teachers, pediatricians and youth public policy makers. The current systematic review aims to identify, in recent literature, the most relevant problems of the complex issue of playing VGs in children and adolescents in order to provide suggestions for the correct management of VG practice. The method used searches through standardized search operators using keywords related to video games and the link with cognition, cognitive control and behaviors adopted during the pandemic. Ninety-nine studies were reviewed and included, whereas twelve studies were excluded because they were educationally irrelevant. Citation: Smirni, D.; Garufo, E.; Di Any debate on the effectiveness of VGs cannot refer to a dichotomous approach, according to which Falco, L.; Lavanco, G. The Playing VGs are rigidly ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
    [Show full text]
  • Cognitive Psychology
    COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY PSYCH 126 Acknowledgements College of the Canyons would like to extend appreciation to the following people and organizations for allowing this textbook to be created: California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office Chancellor Diane Van Hook Santa Clarita Community College District College of the Canyons Distance Learning Office In providing content for this textbook, the following professionals were invaluable: Mehgan Andrade, who was the major contributor and compiler of this work and Neil Walker, without whose help the book could not have been completed. Special Thank You to Trudi Radtke for editing, formatting, readability, and aesthetics. The contents of this textbook were developed under the Title V grant from the Department of Education (Award #P031S140092). However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government. Unless otherwise noted, the content in this textbook is licensed under CC BY 4.0 Table of Contents Psychology .................................................................................................................................................... 1 126 ................................................................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter 1 - History of Cognitive Psychology ............................................................................................. 7 Definition of Cognitive Psychology
    [Show full text]
  • Attention Control in Adults with High Autistic Traits and Attention Training
    ATTENTION CONTROL IN ADULTS WITH HIGH AUTISTIC TRAITS AND ATTENTION TRAINING IN CHILDREN WITH AUTISM By Mayra Muller Spaniol A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY School of Psychology College of Life and Environmental Sciences University of Birmingham January 2017 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT Attentional selection is crucial for successful interaction with the environment, including the ability to select relevant information while suppressing irrelevant distractors. While attention is not thought of as a core component of the autism phenotype, attention atypicalities are often reported in research. However, contradicting findings regarding attention in autism and the Broader Autism Phenotype (BAP) imply that the circumstances under which selection is successful or impaired are not yet clear. In a series of experiments this thesis attempts to delineate more clearly the contexts under which attentional control is enhanced or impaired in the BAP. Specifically, the question of whether differences in attentional control are driven by perceptual atypicalities (e.g., in face processing or a local bias) is investigated in Chapters 2 & 3, where both global/local stimuli and face/scene pairs are used while participants are asked to select one aspect and ignore the other.
    [Show full text]
  • Practice and Colour-Word Integration in Stroop Interference
    Psicológica (2015), 36, 37-67. Practice and colour-word integration in Stroop interference Amara Gul1 and Glyn W. Humphreys2 1The University of Birmingham, UK. 2Oxford University, UK. Congruency effects were examined using a manual response version of the Stroop task in which the relationship between the colour word and its hue on incongruent trials was either kept constant or varied randomly across different pairings within the stimulus set. Congruency effects were increased in the condition where the incongruent hue-word relations were maintained. This effect was observed even when only a single letter was coloured rather than the whole word. The data suggest that the Stroop interference effect can increase when words and hues become bound by learning, which can make it more difficult to ignore the word when responding to the hue. The implications for understanding Stroop interference are discussed. Stroop colour naming is one of the most widely studied paradigms for examining human selective attention (Stroop, 1935; see MacLeod, 1991, for a review). In the classic version of the test, participants are asked to name the colour of the ink in which a word is written while ignoring the word. Typically, reaction times (RTs) to name the ink colour are slower when word‘s name is incongruent (word RED in blue ink) relative to when it is congruent with the colour name (RED in red ink). In contrast, at least for naming tasks, the effects of color congruence on word naming are small (White, 1969). This interference effect from the word on naming its colour demonstrates that we have problems in attending selectively to one component of a multidimensional stimulus and ignoring a highly over 1 Acknowledgement: Preparation of this article was supported by the IUB-FDP scholarship to the first author.
    [Show full text]
  • Posterior Parietal Cortex and the Filtering of Distractors
    Posterior parietal cortex and the filtering of distractors Stacia R. Friedman-Hill*†, Lynn C. Robertson‡§, Robert Desimone¶, and Leslie G. Ungerleider* Laboratories of *Brain and Cognition and ¶Neuropsychology, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892; ‡Department of Psychology and Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720; and §Medical Research Service, Department of Veterans Affairs, Martinez, CA 94553 Contributed by Leslie G. Ungerleider, February 6, 2003 Neural systems for visual processing can focus attention on be- demands indicate that a target stimulus will later appear at a haviorally relevant objects, filtering out competing distractors. specific location in the visual field, neurons with RFs at that Neurophysiological studies in animals and brain imaging studies in retinotopic locus increase their activity, even before the appear- humans suggest that such filtering depends on top-down inputs to ance of the target stimulus (7, 13, 20, 27–29). These and other extrastriate visual areas, originating in structures important for data suggest that visual cortex is under the top-down control of attentional control. To test whether the posterior parietal cortex an attentional network that increases the sensitivity of the cells may be a necessary source of signals that filter distractors, we for the target stimulus, giving it a competitive advantage com- measured the ability of a patient with bilateral parietal lesions to pared with distractors. What are the sources of this top-down discriminate the features of a target surrounded by distractors of control? variable contrast. In the presence of distractors, the patient was One major source of top-down control of ventral stream areas impaired at discriminating both grating orientation and faces, and is likely to be posterior parietal cortex (27, 28, 30).
    [Show full text]
  • Perception Without Awareness: Further Evidence from a Stroop Priming Task
    Perception & Psychophysics 2002, 64 (8), 1316–1324 Perception without awareness: Further evidence from a Stroop priming task M. TERESA DAZA and JUAN J. ORTELLS University of Almería, Almería, Spain and ELAINE FOX University of Essex, Essex, England In the present research,we examined the influence of prime–targetstimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) on Stroop-priming effects from masked words. Participants indicated the color of a central target, which was preceded by a 33-msec prime word followed either immediately or after a variable delay by a pattern mask. The prime word was incongruent or congruent with the target color on 75% and 25% of the trials, respectively. The words followed by an immediate mask produced reliable Stroop interfer- ence at SOAs of 300 and 400 msec but not at SOAs of 500 and 700 msec. The words followed by a de- layedmask produced a reversed(i.e., facilitatory)Stroop effect, which reached significance at an SOA of 400 msec or longer, but never at the shorter 300-msec SOA. Such an differential time course of both types of Stroop priming effects provides further evidence for the existence of qualitative differences between conscious and nonconscious perceptual processes. The question of whether perception can occur without scious experience is indexed by some behavioral measure awareness has been the focus of considerableresearch and that demonstrates an observer’s inability to discriminate discussionfor many years (for recent reviews, see Merikle between alternative stimulus states (see, e.g., Balota, & Daneman, 1998; Merikle, Smilek, & Eastwood, 2001). 1983; Fowler, Wolford, Slade, & Tassinary, 1981; Green- The logic followed by the majority of studies within ex- wald, Draine, & Abrams, 1996; Kunst-Wilson & Zajonc, perimental psychologyhas been to demonstrate a dissoci- 1980; Marcel, 1983a, 1983b).
    [Show full text]
  • Does the Modified Stroop Effect Exist in PTSD?
    Journal of Anxiety Disorders 23 (2009) 650–655 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Anxiety Disorders Does the modified Stroop effect exist in PTSD? Evidence from dissertation abstracts and the peer reviewed literature Matthew O. Kimble a,*, B. Christopher Frueh b, Libby Marks a a Department of Psychology, Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT 05753, United States b Department of Psychology, University of Hawai‘i at Hilo, Hilo, HI, United States ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: The modified Stroop effect (MSE), in which participants show delayed colour naming to trauma-specific Received 26 June 2008 words, is one of the most widely cited findings in the literature pertaining to cognitive bias in Received in revised form 28 January 2009 posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The current study used a novel approach (Dissertation Abstract Accepted 2 February 2009 Review; DAR) to review the presence of the MSE in dissertation abstracts. A review of dissertations that used the modified Stroop task in a PTSD sample revealed that only 8% of the studies found delayed Keywords: reaction times to trauma-specific words in participants with PTSD. The most common finding (75%) was Modified Stroop for no PTSD-specific effects in colour naming trauma-relevant words. This ratio is significantly lower Attentional bias than ratios found in the peer reviewed literature, but even in the peer reviewed literature only 44% of PTSD Trauma controlled studies found the modified Stroop effect. These data suggest that a reevaluation of the MSE in Dissertation Abstract Review PTSD is warranted. ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Modified versions of the original Stroop (1935) task have been depressive, anxiety, and eating disorders (Dagleish & Power, widely used to demonstrate biases in the processing of information 2004; MacLeod, 2005).
    [Show full text]
  • Bilingualism Increases Neural Response Consistency And
    Brain & Language 128 (2014) 34–40 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Brain & Language journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/b&l Short Communication Bilingualism increases neural response consistency and attentional control: Evidence for sensory and cognitive coupling ⇑ Jennifer Krizman a,b,c,g, Erika Skoe a,c,g,1, Viorica Marian b,c,g, Nina Kraus a,c,d,e,f,g, a Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, Evanston, IL, USA2 b Bilingualism and Psycholinguistics Laboratory, Evanston, IL, USA c Department of Communication Sciences, Evanston, IL, USA d Institute for Neuroscience, Evanston, IL, USA e Department of Neurobiology and Physiology, Evanston, IL, USA f Department of Otolaryngology, Evanston, IL, USA g Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA article info abstract Article history: Auditory processing is presumed to be influenced by cognitive processes – including attentional control – Accepted 29 November 2013 in a top-down manner. In bilinguals, activation of both languages during daily communication hones inhibitory skills, which subsequently bolster attentional control. We hypothesize that the heightened attentional demands of bilingual communication strengthens connections between cognitive (i.e., atten- Keywords: tional control) and auditory processing, leading to greater across-trial consistency in the auditory evoked Bilingualism response (i.e., neural consistency) in bilinguals. To assess this, we collected passively-elicited auditory Brainstem evoked responses to the syllable [da] in adolescent Spanish-English bilinguals and English monolinguals Electrophysiology and separately obtained measures of attentional control and language ability. Bilinguals demonstrated Auditory enhanced attentional control and more consistent brainstem and cortical responses. In bilinguals, but not monolinguals, brainstem consistency tracked with language proficiency and attentional control.
    [Show full text]
  • Differential Attentional Control Mechanisms by Two Distinct Noradrenergic Coeruleo-Frontal Cortical Pathways
    Differential attentional control mechanisms by two distinct noradrenergic coeruleo-frontal cortical pathways Andrea Baria,b,c,1, Sangyu Xua,b,c, Michele Pignatellia,c,d, Daigo Takeuchia,c,d, Jiesi Fenge, Yulong Lie,f,g, and Susumu Tonegawaa,b,c,d,1 aRIKEN-MIT Laboratory for Neural Circuit Genetics, Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139; bDepartment of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139; cDepartment of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139; dHHMI, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139; eState Key Laboratory of Membrane Biology, Peking University School of Life Sciences, 100871 Beijing, China; fPeking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, 100871 Beijing, China; and gThe IDG McGovern Institute for Brain Research at Peking University, 100871 Beijing, China Contributed by Susumu Tonegawa, October 2, 2020 (sent for review July 24, 2020; reviewed by Joshua P. Johansen and Robert C. Malenka) The attentional control of behavior is a higher-order cognitive func- the administration of noradrenergic drugs (14, 15). However, since tion that operates through attention and response inhibition. The NE-boosting drugs both increase extracellular NE (16) and de- locus coeruleus (LC), the main source of norepinephrine in the brain, crease the LC spontaneous firing rate (17, 18), it is not clear which is considered to be involved in attentional control by modulating of these effects is responsible for their cognition-enhancing prop- the neuronal activity of the prefrontal cortex (PFC). However, evi- erties, nor whether they are mediated by separate or shared neural dence for the causal role of LC activity in attentional control remains substrates in the PFC.
    [Show full text]