Hiroyasu Tomoyuki, Fukushima Arika, Yokouchi Hisatake
Faculty of Life and Medical Sciences, Doshihsa University, Japan.
Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2012;2012:1466-9. doi: 10.1109/EMBC.2012.6346217.
The Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) and the GO/NOGO task are generally applied to measure the ability of sustained attention. Advances in functional brain imaging equipment, such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS), have resulted in increased application of brain imaging with these tasks. However, several different stimuli are adopted in these tasks, including both auditory and visual stimuli. Therefore, even when a subject performs these tasks, it can be assumed that the activated brain regions would vary when the different stimuli are given. Furthermore, even when a subject performs the tasks with the same sustained attention, the activated brain regions would vary when the configurations of these tasks are different. In this study, the reaction time and changes in blood flow were measured when a subject performed the PVT and GO/NOGO tasks, and so it is possible to discuss (1) the differences between visual and auditory stimuli and (2) the differences between PVT and GO/NOGO tasks. The results indicated increased blood flow at the left side of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the PVT with visual stimulus compared with the auditory stimulus. In the GO/NOGO task, the blood flow associated with visual stimuli increased at the both sides of the inferior temporal gyrus and the right side of the inferior frontal gyrus compared with auditory stimuli. These observations suggested that the configurations of these tasks, such as the PVT and the GO/NOGO tasks, exert influences on the activated brain regions when a subject performs these tasks.
心理运动警觉任务（PVT）和Go/NoGo任务通常用于测量持续注意力的能力。功能性脑成像设备的进步，如功能磁共振成像（fMRI）和功能近红外光谱（fNIRS），使得这些任务在脑成像中的应用增加。然而，这些任务采用了几种不同的刺激，包括听觉和视觉刺激。因此，即使受试者执行这些任务，也可以假设当给予不同刺激时，激活的脑区会有所不同。此外，即使受试者以相同的持续注意力执行任务，当这些任务的配置不同时，激活的脑区也会有所不同。在本研究中，当受试者执行PVT和Go/NoGo任务时，测量了反应时间和血流变化，因此有可能讨论（1）视觉和听觉刺激之间的差异以及（2）PVT和Go/NoGo任务之间的差异。结果表明，与听觉刺激相比，在视觉刺激的PVT中，背外侧前额叶皮质左侧的血流增加。在Go/NoGo任务中，与听觉刺激相比，与视觉刺激相关的血流在颞下回两侧和额下回右侧增加。这些观察结果表明，这些任务的配置，如PVT和Go/NoGo任务，在受试者执行这些任务时会对激活的脑区产生影响。
