Transient neural activity in human parietal cortex during spatial attention shifts.

Full Abstract

Observers viewing a complex visual scene selectively attend to relevant locations or objects and ignore irrelevant ones. Selective attention to an object enhances its neural representation in extrastriate cortex, compared with those of unattended objects, via top-down attentional control signals. The posterior parietal cortex is centrally involved in this control of spatial attention. We examined brain activity during attention shifts using rapid, event-related fMRI of human observers as they covertly shifted attention between two peripheral spatial locations. Activation in extrastriate cortex increased after a shift of attention to the contralateral visual field and remained high during sustained contralateral attention. The time course of activity was substantially different in posterior parietal cortex, where transient increases in activation accompanied shifts of attention in either direction. This result suggests that activation of the parietal cortex is associated with a discrete signal to shift spatial attention, and is not the source of a signal to continuously maintain the current attentive state.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Yantis, Steven (S); Schwarzbach, Jens (J); Serences, John T (JT); Carlson, Robert L (RL); Steinmetz, Michael A (MA); Pekar, James J (JJ); Courtney, Susan M (SM);

Affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA. yantis(-atsign-)jhu.edu

Grants: P41-RR15241 (Agency:NCRR NIH HHS) ; R01-DA13165 (Agency:NIDA NIH HHS)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

Journal: Nature neuroscience (Nat Neurosci), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Oct; vol 5 (issue 10) : pp 995-1002

Dates: Created 2002/09/27; Completed 2002/10/22; Revised 2007/11/14;

PMID: 12219097, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adult
Analysis of Variance
Attention - physiology
Brain Mapping - methods
Female
Humans

Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging - statistics & numerical data
Male
Parietal Lobe - physiology
Photic Stimulation - methods
Spatial Behavior - physiology

These are the highest related articles currently in the database:

See 100+ related articles.