SII and the fronto-parietal areas are involved in visually cued tactile top-down spatial attention: a functional MRI study.
Visual cue-oriented, tactile top-down attention (vTA) has been well investigated behaviorally. However, vTA-related brain activation remains unclear, and whether SI (primary somatosensory cortex) or SII (secondary somatosensory cortex) is modulated by the top-down process of tactile cognition remains particularly controversial. We used the Posner paradigm in which a visual spatial cue directed attention to a tactile target [tactile spatial attention (TS) task]. The TS is compared with a visual nonspatially cued, tactile attention task [tactile neutral attention (TN) task]. The behavioral results showed no significant differences between the TS and TN tasks. However, we considered the possibility that the visual spatial hint affected the TS neural network. Brain-imaging data showed that the inferior parietal lobe was activated more during the TS task than during the TN task. Furthermore, we present evidence to support SII modulation by top-down processing during the TS task.
aThe Graduate School of Natural Science and Technology, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan bSchool of Biomedical Engineering, Capital Medical University, Beijing cDepartment of Radiology, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, China.
Qiong
Q
Wu
Chunlin
C
Li
Yujie
Y
Li
Hongzan
H
Sun
Qiyong
Q
Guo
Jinglong
J
Wu
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D059907:Functional Neuroimaging / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D013003:Somatosensory Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055698:Touch Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult