TY - JOUR
T1 - The role of a right fronto-parietal network in cognitive control
T2 - Common activations for "Cues-to-Attend" and response inhibition
AU - Fassbender, Catherine
AU - Simoes-Franklin, C.
AU - Murphy, K.
AU - Hester, R.
AU - Meaney, J.
AU - Roberton, I. H.
AU - Garavan, Hugh
PY - 2006/11/20
Y1 - 2006/11/20
N2 - Seemingly distinct cognitive tasks often activate similar anatomical networks. For example, the right fronto-parietal cortex is active across a wide variety of paradigms suggesting that these regions may subserve a general cognitive function. We utilized fMRI and a GO/NOGO task consisting of two conditions, one with intermittent unpredictive "cues-to-attend" and the other without any "cues-to-attend," in order to investigate areas involved in inhibition of a prepotent response and top-down attentional control. Sixteen subjects (5 male, ages ranging from 20 to 30 years) responded to an alternating sequence of the letters X and Y and withheld responding when the alternating sequence was broken (e.g., when X followed an X). Cues were rare stimulus font-color changes, which were linked to a simple instruction to attend to the task at hand. We hypothesized that inhibitions and cues, despite requiring quite different responses from subjects, might engage similar top-down attentional control processes and would thus share a common network of anatomical substrates. Although inhibitions and cues activated a number of distinct brain regions, a similar network of right dorsolateral prefrontal and inferior parietal regions was active for both. These results suggest that this network, commonly activated for response inhibition, may subserve a more general cognitive control process involved in allocating top-down attentional resources.
AB - Seemingly distinct cognitive tasks often activate similar anatomical networks. For example, the right fronto-parietal cortex is active across a wide variety of paradigms suggesting that these regions may subserve a general cognitive function. We utilized fMRI and a GO/NOGO task consisting of two conditions, one with intermittent unpredictive "cues-to-attend" and the other without any "cues-to-attend," in order to investigate areas involved in inhibition of a prepotent response and top-down attentional control. Sixteen subjects (5 male, ages ranging from 20 to 30 years) responded to an alternating sequence of the letters X and Y and withheld responding when the alternating sequence was broken (e.g., when X followed an X). Cues were rare stimulus font-color changes, which were linked to a simple instruction to attend to the task at hand. We hypothesized that inhibitions and cues, despite requiring quite different responses from subjects, might engage similar top-down attentional control processes and would thus share a common network of anatomical substrates. Although inhibitions and cues activated a number of distinct brain regions, a similar network of right dorsolateral prefrontal and inferior parietal regions was active for both. These results suggest that this network, commonly activated for response inhibition, may subserve a more general cognitive control process involved in allocating top-down attentional resources.
KW - Cues
KW - Right DLPFC
KW - Top-down control
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=33750987339&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=33750987339&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1027/0269-8803.20.4.286
DO - 10.1027/0269-8803.20.4.286
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:33750987339
VL - 20
SP - 286
EP - 296
JO - Journal of Psychophysiology
JF - Journal of Psychophysiology
SN - 0269-8803
IS - 4
ER -