title: Comparison of fMRI activation patterns for test and training procedures of alertness and focused attention.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Behavioural studies of attention training after brain damage have shown that only training procedures specifically related to the impaired attention function lead to significant improvements in the respective attention domain when using psychometric tests addressing these functions. The main objective of this fMRI study was to investigate specific as well as common neural correlates of alertness and focused attention and to assess the degree of neural overlap for two different tasks of the same attention function.
  
  
  METHODS
  To investigate how different attention functions are processed, we tested 32 healthy participants using fMRI. Each participant was randomly assigned to the alertness (n = 16) or the focused attention (n = 16) group, where participants underwent two different attention tasks, one being a diagnostic computerized test procedure and the other being a computer-game like training procedure.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The present results show similar activation patterns when assessing the same attention function with two different tasks. Activation overlap for test and training tasks of the same attention function was more clear-cut than the activation overlap for two different attention functions.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Clinically validated diagnostic test paradigms and computer game-like training paradigms for both alertness and focused attention activated common brain systems processing the respective attention function. These findings may help to explain the beneficial effect of specifically designed attentional training procedures and the validity of related psychometric tests in detecting specific changes in performance after training of the same attention functions.
authors: Neurological Clinic, Section Neuropsychology, RWTH Aachen University Hospital, Aachen, Germany. clemens@neuropsych.rwth-aachen.de
authors: Benjamin
authors: B
authors: Clemens
authors: Mikhail
authors: M
authors: Zvyagintsev
authors: Alexander T
authors: AT
authors: Sack
authors: Armin
authors: A
authors: Heinecke
authors: Klaus
authors: K
authors: Willmes
authors: Walter
authors: W
authors: Sturm
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001519:Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D055815:Young Adult