Functional parcellation of attentional control regions of the brain.
Abstract
Recently, a number of investigators have examined the neural loci of psychological
processes enabling the control of visual spatial attention using cued-attention paradigms
in combination with event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging. Findings
from these studies have provided strong evidence for the involvement of a fronto-parietal
network in attentional control. In the present study, we build upon this previous
work to further investigate these attentional control systems. In particular, we employed
additional controls for nonattentional sensory and interpretative aspects of cue processing
to determine whether distinct regions in the fronto-parietal network are involved
in different aspects of cue processing, such as cue-symbol interpretation and attentional
orienting. In addition, we used shorter cue-target intervals that were closer to those
used in the behavioral and event-related potential cueing literatures. Twenty participants
performed a cued spatial attention task while brain activity was recorded with functional
magnetic resonance imaging. We found functional specialization for different aspects
of cue processing in the lateral and medial subregions of the frontal and parietal
cortex. In particular, the medial subregions were more specific to the orienting of
visual spatial attention, while the lateral subregions were associated with more general
aspects of cue processing, such as cue-symbol interpretation. Additional cue-related
effects included differential activations in midline frontal regions and pretarget
enhancements in the thalamus and early visual cortical areas.
Type
Journal articleSubject
AdultAttention
Brain Mapping
Cues
Evoked Potentials
Female
Frontal Lobe
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Mental Processes
Nerve Net
Parietal Lobe
Reference Values
Space Perception
Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/6926Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1162/089892904322755638Publication Info
Woldorff, Marty G; Hazlett, Chad J; Fichtenholtz, Harlan M; Weissman, Daniel H; Dale,
Anders M; & Song, Allen W (2004). Functional parcellation of attentional control regions of the brain. J Cogn Neurosci, 16(1). pp. 149-165. 10.1162/089892904322755638. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/6926.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
Collections
More Info
Show full item recordScholars@Duke
Allen W Song
Professor in Radiology
The research in our lab is concerned with advancing structural and functional MRI
methodologies (e.g. fast and high-resolution imaging techniques) for human brain imaging.
We also aim to improve our understanding of functional brain signals, including spatiotemporal
characterizations of the blood oxygenation level dependent contrast and alternative
contrast mechanisms that are more directly linked to the neuronal activities. Additional
effort is invested in applying and validating the de
Marty G. Woldorff
Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Dr. Woldorff's main research interest is in the cognitive neuroscience of attention.
At each and every moment of our lives, we are bombarded by a welter of sensory information
coming at us from a myriad of directions and through our various sensory modalities
-- much more than we can fully process. We must continuously select and extract the
most important information from this welter of sensory inputs. How the human brain
accomplishes this is one of the core challenges of modern cognitive neuro
Alphabetical list of authors with Scholars@Duke profiles.

Articles written by Duke faculty are made available through the campus open access policy. For more information see: Duke Open Access Policy
Rights for Collection: Scholarly Articles
Works are deposited here by their authors, and represent their research and opinions, not that of Duke University. Some materials and descriptions may include offensive content. More info