The Neuropyhsiology of Attentional Deployment

日常生活中的一项关键技能是有选择地关注环境中“相关”元素，而忽略无关或分散注意力的信息的能力。人们提出了这种选择性的两种基本神经机制。这可能是那些负责处理感兴趣刺激的神经元的兴奋性被选择性地增强了。或者，接收与手头任务无关的输入的神经元的兴奋性可能被抑制。尽管人们通常认为这两种机制都在空间注意中发挥作用，但很少有研究直接尝试将它们分开。由于缺乏可靠的依赖测量方法，采用高密度电图（EEG）用于此目的的仍然较少。在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，纽约市立大学城市学院的约翰·福克斯博士将开始整理这些解释。最近有研究表明，8-14赫兹α频段的大脑节律与选择性抑制可能分散注意力的视觉有关。利用一套新颖的电生理工具，Foxe和同事将评估：1)预期性注意抑制过程与注意负荷程度的关系，以α带振荡为指标；2)从外部诱导α带振荡节律是否可以重现选择性空间注意的影响；3)预期性α基抑制效应的空间灵活性。视觉功能分析新方法的发展将在认知神经生理学领域具有广泛的用途。更好地理解预期注意的基本原理将使我们能够开发出更好的预测措施，最终导致对感觉/运动剥夺患者的辅助技术的改进。该项目将在纽约城市学院（CCNY）进行，该学院的学生来自高度多样化的人群。在CCNY最近的一次本科生人口普查中，超过90%的心理学专业学生来自传统上代表性不足的少数群体。CCNY是美国第四大获得博士学位的本科生来源，其中很大一部分是少数民族。通过夏季轮转项目和CCNY荣誉学院的专门项目，本科生将成为该组实验室的固定成员，并将有广泛的机会接受高级神经科学技术的培训。

A critical skill for everyday life is the ability to selectively attend to "relevant" elements of our environment while ignoring irrelevant or distracting information. Two basic neural mechanisms for this selectivity have been proposed. It may be that the excitability in those neurons responsible for processing stimuli of interest is selectively enhanced. Alternatively, excitability in neurons receiving inputs irrelevant to the task at hand may be suppressed. Although it is often assumed that both mechanisms play a part in spatial attention, few studies have made directed attempts to separate them. Fewer still have employed high-density electrical mapping (EEG) for this purpose, mainly due to a lack of reliable dependent measures. With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. John Foxe of City College, City University of New York, will begin to sort these explanations out. Recently it has been shown that brain rhythms in the 8-14 Hz alpha frequency band are involved in selective suppression of potentially distracting visual. Using a set of novel electrophysiological tools, Foxe and colleagues will assess: 1) the relationship of anticipatory attentional suppression processes to the degree of attentional-load, as indexed by alpha-band oscillations, 2) whether inducing these oscillatory rhythms in the alpha band from the outside can reproduce the effects on selective spatial attention, and 3) the spatial flexibility of the anticipatory alpha-based suppression effect.The development of new procedures for the analysis of visual function will be of broad utility in the field of cognitive neurophysiology. Better understanding of the fundamentals of anticipatory attention will allow us to develop better predictive measures, ultimately leading to improvements in assistive technology for individuals with sensory/motor deprivation. The City College of New York (CCNY), where this project will be carried out, draws its students from a highly diverse population. In a recent census of the undergraduate population at CCNY, more than 90% of declared psychology majors were from traditionally under-represented minority groups. CCNY is the nation's fourth largest source of undergraduates who go on to earn the PhD degree, a large proportion of whom are minorities. Through a summer rotation program and a dedicated program in the CCNY honors college, undergraduate students will be a regular fixture in this group's laboratory and will have extensive opportunities for training in high-level neuroscience techniques.