Dataset Information

Top-down cortical interactions in visuospatial attention.

ABSTRACT: The voluntary allocation of visuospatial attention depends upon top-down influences from the frontal eye field (FEF) and intraparietal sulcus (IPS)-the core regions of the dorsal attention network (DAN)-to visual occipital cortex (VOC), and has been further associated with within-DAN influences, particularly from the FEF to IPS. However, the degree to which these influences manifest at rest and are then modulated during anticipatory visuospatial attention tasks remains poorly understood. Here, we measured both undirected and directed functional connectivity (UFC, DFC) between the FEF, IPS, and VOC at rest and during an anticipatory visuospatial attention task, using a slow event-related design. Whereas the comparison between rest and task indicated FC modulations that persisted throughout the task duration, the large number of task trials we collected further enabled us to measure shorter timescale modulations of FC across the trial. Relative to rest, task engagement induced enhancement of both top-down influences from the DAN to VOC, as well as bidirectional influences between the FEF and IPS. These results suggest that task performance induces enhanced interaction within the DAN and a greater top-down influence on VOC. While resting FC generally showed right hemisphere dominance, task-related enhancement favored the left hemisphere, effectively balancing a resting hemispheric asymmetry, particularly within the DAN. On a shorter (within-trial) timescale, VOC-to-DAN and bidirectional FEF-IPS influences were transiently elevated during the anticipatory period of the trial, evincing phasic modulations related to changing attentional demands. In contrast to these task-specific effects, resting and task-related influence patterns were highly correlated, suggesting a predisposing role for resting organization, which requires minimal tonic and phasic modulations for control of visuospatial attention.

SUBMITTER: Meehan TP

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5607080 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Top-down cortical interactions in visuospatial attention.

Meehan Timothy P TP Bressler Steven L SL Tang Wei W Astafiev Serguei V SV Sylvester Chad M CM Shulman Gordon L GL Corbetta Maurizio M

Brain structure & function 20170320 7

The voluntary allocation of visuospatial attention depends upon top-down influences from the frontal eye field (FEF) and intraparietal sulcus (IPS)-the core regions of the dorsal attention network (DAN)-to visual occipital cortex (VOC), and has been further associated with within-DAN influences, particularly from the FEF to IPS. However, the degree to which these influences manifest at rest and are then modulated during anticipatory visuospatial attention tasks remains poorly understood. Here, w ...[more]

PMID: 28321551

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Project description:The analysis of ecological networks is generally bottom-up, where networks are established by observing interactions between individuals. Emergent network properties have been indicated to reflect the dominant mode of interactions in communities that might be mutualistic (e.g., pollination) or antagonistic (e.g., host-parasitoid communities). Many ecological communities, however, comprise species interactions that are difficult to observe directly. Here, we propose that a comparison of the emergent properties from detail-rich reference communities with known modes of interaction can inform our understanding of detail-sparse focal communities. With this top-down approach, we consider patterns of coexistence between termite species that live as guests in mounds built by other host termite species as a case in point. Termite societies are extremely sensitive to perturbations, which precludes determining the nature of their interactions through direct observations. We perform a literature review to construct two networks representing termite mound cohabitation in a Brazilian savanna and in the tropical forest of Cameroon. We contrast the properties of these cohabitation networks with a total of 197 geographically diverse mutualistic plant-pollinator and antagonistic host-parasitoid networks. We analyze network properties for the networks, perform a principal components analysis (PCA), and compute the Mahalanobis distance of the termite networks to the cloud of mutualistic and antagonistic networks to assess the extent to which the termite networks overlap with the properties of the reference networks. Both termite networks overlap more closely with the mutualistic plant-pollinator communities than the antagonistic host-parasitoid communities, although the Brazilian community overlap with mutualistic communities is stronger. The analysis raises the hypothesis that termite-termite cohabitation networks may be overall mutualistic. More broadly, this work provides support for the argument that cryptic communities may be analyzed via comparison to well-characterized communities.

Dataset Information

Top-down cortical interactions in visuospatial attention.

Publications

Top-down cortical interactions in visuospatial attention.

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