title: Adaptations of motor neural structures' activity to lapses in attention.
abstract: Sustained attention is fundamental for cognition and when impaired, impacts negatively on important contemporary living skills. Degradation in sustained attention is characterized by the time-on-task (TOT) effect, which manifests as a gradual increase in reaction time (RT). The TOT effect is accompanied by changes in relative brain activity patterns in attention-related areas, most noticeably in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the right parietal areas. However, activity changes in task-relevant motor structures have not been confirmed to date. This article describes an investigation of such motor-related activity changes as measured with 1) the time course of corticospinal excitability (CSE) through single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation; and 2) the changes in activity of premotor (PMC), primary motor (M1), PFC, and right parietal areas by means of near-infrared spectroscopy, during a sustained attention RT task exhibiting the TOT effect. Our results corroborate established findings such as a significant increase (P < 0.05) in lateral prefrontal and right parietal areas activity after the emergence of the TOT effect but also reveal adaptations in the form of motor activity changes--in particular, a significant increase in CSE (P < 0.01) and in primary motor area (M1) activity (P < 0.05).
authors: Movement to Health (M2H), Montpellier-1 University, Montpellier 34090, France Biomedical Engineering Research Group (BERG), National University of Ireland Maynooth (NUIM), Co Kildare, Ireland.
authors: Gérard
authors: G
authors: Derosière
authors: Movement to Health (M2H), Montpellier-1 University, Montpellier 34090, France.
authors: Maxime
authors: M
authors: Billot
authors: Biomedical Engineering Research Group (BERG), National University of Ireland Maynooth (NUIM), Co Kildare, Ireland.
authors: E Tomas
authors: ET
authors: Ward
authors: Movement to Health (M2H), Montpellier-1 University, Montpellier 34090, France.
authors: Stéphane
authors: S
authors: Perrey
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D004576:Electromyography; D019054:Evoked Potentials, Motor; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology*; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000294:innervation / Q000502:physiology; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D011712:Pyramidal Tracts / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time; D019265:Spectroscopy, Near-Infrared; D013933:Thumb / Q000294:innervation; D050781:Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: NIRS; motor preparation; sustained attention; time-on-task; transcranial magnetic stimulation