title: Frontal subregions mediating Elevator Counting task performance.
abstract: Deficits in sustained attention may lead to action slips in everyday life as irrelevant action sequences are inappropriately triggered internally or by the environment. While deficits in sustained attention have been associated with damage to the frontal lobes of the brain, little is known about the role of the frontal lobes in the Elevator Counting subtest of the Test of Everyday Attention. In the current study, 55 frontal patients subdivided into medial, orbital and lateral subgroups, 18 patients with posterior lesions and 82 healthy controls performed the Elevator Counting task. The results revealed that patients with medial and left lateral prefrontal lesions were significantly impaired on the task compared to healthy controls. Research suggests that patients with medial lesions are susceptible to competition from task irrelevant schema; whereas the left lateral group in the current study may fail to keep track of the tones already presented.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK. sarah.macpherson@ed.ac.uk
authors.forename: Sarah E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: MacPherson
authors.forename: Martha S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Turner
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bozzali
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cipolotti
authors.forename: Tim
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Shallice
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001927:Brain Diseases / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000473:pathology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008433:Mathematics; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric