Endogenous Auditory Spatial Attention Modulates Obligatory Sensory Activity in Auditory Cortex
Endogenous Auditory Spatial Attention Modulates Obligatory Sensory Activity in Auditory Cortex
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DOI：
10.1093/cercor/bhq233
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发表时间：
2011-06-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Reilly, Richard B.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Power, Alan J.;Lalor, Edmund C.;Reilly, Richard B.
内源性注意是对环境某一区域或特征的自我定向注意焦点。在这项研究中，我们使用新的听觉诱发扩展频谱分析(AESPA)方法来评估内源性注意对连续和竞争的听觉刺激的时间细节反应的影响。关于感觉加工的增强是否与内源性注意有关，还存在一些争论。有人认为，注意效应并不是由于感觉活动的增加，而是由于独立的、暂时重叠的非感觉注意相关活动的参与。还有一个问题是，外源性注意捕获机制的影响可能会阻碍对内源性注意的研究。由于AESPA方法的性质，获得的反应代表与刺激包络直接相关的活动，因此主要对应于强制性感觉处理。此外，刺激的连续性将外源性注意的影响降至最低。我们发现注意调制类似于136ms(在AESPA反应的NC部分)，并将其定位于听觉皮质。虽然不能排除单独的非感官注意中心的参与，但这些发现清楚地表明，内源性注意确实调节了听觉皮质中的强制性感觉活动。
Endogenous attention is the self-directed focus of attention to a region or feature of the environment. In this study, we assess the effects of endogenous attention on temporally detailed responses to continuous and competing auditory stimuli obtained using the novel auditory evoked spread spectrum analysis (AESPA) method. There is some debate as to whether an enhancement of sensory processing is involved in endogenous attention. It has been suggested that attentional effects are not due to increased sensory activity but are due to engagement of separate temporally overlapping nonsensory attention-related activity. There are also issues with the fact that the influence of exogenous attention grabbing mechanisms may hamper studies of endogenous attention. Due to the nature of the AESPA method, the obtained responses represent activity directly related to the stimulus envelope and thus predominantly correspond to obligatory sensory processing. In addition, the continuous nature of the stimuli minimizes exogenous attentional influence. We found attentional modulations at similar to 136 ms (during the Nc component of the AESPA response) and localized this to auditory cortex. Although the involvement of separate nonsensory attentional centers cannot be ruled out, these findings clearly demonstrate that endogenous attention does modulate obligatory sensory activity in auditory cortex.