Voluntary orienting is dissociated from target detection in human posterior parietal cortex.
Human ability to attend to visual stimuli based on their spatial locations requires the parietal cortex. One hypothesis maintains that parietal cortex controls the voluntary orienting of attention toward a location of interest. Another hypothesis emphasizes its role in reorienting attention toward visual targets appearing at unattended locations. Here, using event-related functional magnetic resonance (ER-fMRI), we show that distinct parietal regions mediated these different attentional processes. Cortical activation occurred primarily in the intraparietal sulcus when a location was attended before visual-target presentation, but in the right temporoparietal junction when the target was detected, particularly at an unattended location.
Corbetta
M
M
Department of Neurology and Neurological Surgery, Washington University School of Medicine, 4525 Scott Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri 63110, USA. mau@npg.wustl.edu
Kincade
J M
JM
Ollinger
J M
JM
McAvoy
M P
MP
Shulman
G L
GL
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009778:Occipital Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D014794:Visual Fields / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*