Brain Mechanisms of Spontaneous and Learned Attentional Flexibility

项目摘要 个体在转移空间注意力的准备程度上会随着时间的推移而发生规律性的波动，这被称为注意力转移。 灵活性.尽管研究人员历来将注意力的控制归因于刺激的组合， 显著性和行为目标，越来越多的工作表明，学习在以下方面发挥着重要作用： 决定注意力的焦点。学习也调节注意力的每时每刻的波动， 灵活性，使个人学会调整他们的准备转移注意力的可能性， 需要在当前的环境中做出改变。适应注意力灵活性是一个重要的组成部分 目标导向的行为虽然注意灵活性学习功能障碍可能是一个关键的认知障碍， 各种精神障碍的缺陷，如焦虑症，注意缺陷多动障碍， 精神分裂症和药物滥用，灵活性学习波动的神经基础仍然未知。 这个项目将整合现有的关于持续注意力波动的理论，学习注意力状态， 灵活性和刺激驱动的注意力定向问：个人如何预期任务要求， 调整他们的准备转移注意力相应？该项目提出了一种新的神经心理学 模型来解释轮班准备中受试者内变化的多个来源。正在发生的变化 持续的注意力和注意力的灵活性已经独立地与自发的变化有关， 大脑默认模式网络内的活动，而注意力灵活性学习与 背侧和腹侧注意力控制网络。然而，自发的和学习的大脑 状态相互作用，以确定注意力的灵活性，以及转移预测的代表性格式，是 未知具体目标1是表征违约模式下自发波动的相互作用 在背侧和腹侧注意网络中的网络活动和任务诱发的预测误差信号。具体 目的二是探讨注意转移期望神经表征的位置无关性。具体 目的3是确定高血压个体注意灵活性受损的机制。 焦虑为了进行这些研究，本科生和硕士生将采用创新的 认知神经科学中的技术，包括fMRI数据的反向编码模型和事件相关 通过脑电图测量的电位。本课题的主要目的是：（1）研究 注意灵活性受试者内变异的神经基础;（2）显著加强研究 环境在维克森林包括本科生和早期研究生科学家在尖端研究 关于注意力控制

Project Summary Individuals regularly fluctuate over time in their readiness to shift spatial attention, referred to as attentional flexibility. Although researchers have historically attributed the control of attention to a combination of stimulus salience and behavioral goals, a growing body of work has suggested that learning plays an important role in determining the focus of attention. Learning also modulates moment-by-moment fluctuations in attentional flexibility such that individuals learn to adjust their readiness to shift attention according to the likelihood of needing to make a shift in their current environment. Adapting attentional flexibility is an important component of goal-directed behavior. Although the dysfunction of attentional flexibility learning may be a key cognitive deficit in a variety of psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia, and substance abuse, the neural bases of learned fluctuations in flexibility remain unknown. This project will integrate existing theories on fluctuations in sustained attention, states of learned attentional flexibility, and stimulus-driven attentional orienting to ask: how do individuals anticipate task demands and adapt their readiness to shift attention accordingly? This project proposes a novel neuropsychological model to account for multiple sources of within-subject variation in shift readiness. Ongoing changes in sustained attention and attentional flexibility have been independently linked to spontaneous changes in activity within the brain’s default mode network, while attentional flexibility learning has been associated with the dorsal and ventral attentional control networks. However, the ways in which spontaneous and learned brain states interact to determine attentional flexibility, as well as the representational format of shift predictions, are unknown. Specific Aim 1 is to characterize the interaction of spontaneous fluctuations in default mode network activity and task-evoked prediction error signals in the dorsal and ventral attention networks. Specific Aim 2 is to probe the location-independence of attention shift expectation neural representations. Specific Aim 3 is to identify the mechanisms responsible for impaired attentional flexibility in individuals with high anxiety. To conduct these studies, undergraduate and master’s-level students will employ innovative techniques in cognitive neuroscience, including inverted encoding models of fMRI data and event-related potentials measured through electroencephalography. The goals of this project are to: (1) investigate the neural bases of within-subject variation in attentional flexibility and (2) to significantly strengthen the research environment at Wake Forest by including undergraduate and early graduate scientists in cutting-edge research on attentional control.