DYNAMIC CONTROL OF SPATIAL ATTENTION--NEUROLOGIC BASES

描述：(申请人摘要)这项建议是直接回应 对“选择性认知缺陷”上升进行调查的呼声 来自“神经发育障碍”，以及这种发现的应用 对基本的大脑-行为关系的理解。我们的 对婴儿自闭症的研究表明，自闭症患者的 认知中的小脑：快速定位和重定位 请注意。我们建议调查这是否反映了一个普遍的 而不是这种发展所独有的关系 障碍，并确定小脑所在的系统 相互关联的(如额叶和顶叶皮质)表现相当 或辅助性注意操作。假设将在此进行检验 建议是：a)小脑对于快速的 注意焦点的定向或重新定向；b)顶叶皮质 主要参与中枢神经系统外的注意操作 注意焦点(例如，监测下列地点的信息 潜在的未来重要性)；以及c)额叶皮质主要 涉及注意力焦点内的注意力操作的 (包括选择和维持这一重点)。 为了验证这些假设，我们将研究成年患者(年龄18-70岁) 中风引起的小脑、顶叶或额叶损伤，以及年龄和 性别匹配的正常对照组。行为和事件相关电位 将在两组不同但互补的视觉- 空间注意实验，索引的注意操作 利息。因为我们要测试的是患者的 小脑和额叶，我们的测量旨在 与运动反应无关。磁共振成像将用于验证和 量化病变的位置和大小以及残留的皮质和 皮质下薄壁组织。ERP和行为测量将相互关联 关于病变的位置和大小，一种已经成功的手术 在可比较的实验中使用。这里提出的实验是 旨在引起解剖损伤和受损的双重分离 关于小脑在动态控制中起特定作用的概念 注意力资源，并将扩大我们对 皮质下系统和皮质系统在人类中的互补作用 请注意。

DESCRIPTION: (Applicant's Abstract) This proposal is in direct response to a call for investigations of "selective cognitive deficits" rising from "neurodevelopmental disorders," and the application of such finding to the understanding of fundamental brain-behavior relationships. Our studies of infantile autism suggest a new and unexpected role for the cerebellum in cognition: rapid orientation and re-orientation of attention. We propose to investigate whether this reflects a general relationship rather than one that is unique to this developmental disorder, and to determine whether systems with which the cerebellum is interconnected (such as frontal and parietal cortex) perform comparable or complementary attentional operations. Hypothesis to be tested in this proposal are: a) the cerebellum is of critical importance for the rapid orientation or re-orientation of an attentional focus; b) parietal cortex is primarily involved in attentional operations outside the central attentional focus (e.g., monitoring information at locations of potential future importance); and c) frontal cortex is primarily involved in attentional operations within an attentional focus (including selection and maintenance of that focus). To test these hypotheses we will study adult patients (age 18-70) with cerebellar, parietal or frontal damage due to stroke, as well as age and gender matched normal controls. Behavior and event-related potentials will be recorded during two different but complementary sets of visual- spatial attention experiments that index the attentional operations of interest. Since we will be testing patients with damage to the cerebellum and frontal lobes, our measures are designed to be independent of motor response. MR imaging will be used to verify and quantify site and size of lesion as well as residual cortical and subcortical parenchyma. ERP and behavioral measures will be correlated with site and size of lesion, a procedure that has been successfully employ in comparable experiments. The experiments proposed here are designed to elicit double dissociations of anatomic damage and impaired concept that the cerebellum plays a specific role in the dynamic control of attentional resources, and will expand our knowledge of the complementary roles of subcortical and cortical systems in human attention.