Fan Jin, Gu Xiaosi, Guise Kevin G, Liu Xun, Fossella John, Wang Hongbin, Posner Michael I
Department of Psychiatry, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, One Gustave L. Levy Place, Box 1230, NY 10029, USA.
Brain Cogn. 2009 Jul;70(2):209-20. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2009.02.002. Epub 2009 Mar 6.
One current conceptualization of attention subdivides it into functions of alerting, orienting, and executive control. Alerting describes the function of tonically maintaining the alert state and phasically responding to a warning signal. Automatic and voluntary orienting are involved in the selection of information among multiple sensory inputs. Executive control describes a set of more complex operations that include detecting and resolving conflicts in order to control thoughts or behaviors. Converging evidence supports this theory of attention by showing that each function appears to be subserved by anatomically distinct networks in the brain and differentially innervated by various neuromodulatory systems. Although much research has been dedicated to understanding the functional separation of these networks in both healthy and disease states, the interaction and integration among these networks still remain unclear. In this study, we aimed to characterize possible behavioral interaction and integration in healthy adult volunteers using a revised attention network test (ANT-R) with cue-target interval and cue validity manipulations. We found that whereas alerting improves overall response speed, it exerts negative influence on executive control under certain conditions. A valid orienting cue enhances but an invalid cue diminishes the ability of executive control to overcome conflict. The results support the hypothesis of functional integration and interaction of these brain networks.
当前对注意力的一种概念化认识将其细分为警觉、定向和执行控制功能。警觉描述了持续维持警觉状态以及对警告信号做出阶段性反应的功能。自动定向和随意定向参与了在多个感觉输入中选择信息的过程。执行控制描述了一组更复杂的操作，包括检测和解决冲突以控制思维或行为。越来越多的证据支持了这种注意力理论，即表明每种功能似乎都由大脑中在解剖学上不同的网络所支持，并由各种神经调节系统进行不同的神经支配。尽管已经有很多研究致力于理解这些网络在健康和疾病状态下的功能分离，但这些网络之间的相互作用和整合仍然不清楚。在本研究中，我们旨在通过使用经过修订的注意力网络测试（ANT-R），对提示-目标间隔和提示有效性进行操作，来描述健康成年志愿者中可能存在的行为相互作用和整合。我们发现，虽然警觉提高了整体反应速度，但在某些条件下它会对执行控制产生负面影响。一个有效的定向提示会增强，但一个无效提示会削弱执行控制克服冲突的能力。这些结果支持了这些脑网络功能整合和相互作用的假设。
