Sacchet Matthew D, LaPlante Roan A, Wan Qian, Pritchett Dominique L, Lee Adrian K C, Hämäläinen Matti, Moore Christopher I, Kerr Catherine E, Jones Stephanie R
Neurosciences Program, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, 94305, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, 94305.
Athinoula A. Martinos Center For Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts, 02129.
J Neurosci. 2015 Feb 4;35(5):2074-82. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1292-14.2015.
The right inferior frontal cortex (rIFC) is specifically associated with attentional control via the inhibition of behaviorally irrelevant stimuli and motor responses. Similarly, recent evidence has shown that alpha (7-14 Hz) and beta (15-29 Hz) oscillations in primary sensory neocortical areas are enhanced in the representation of non-attended stimuli, leading to the hypothesis that allocation of these rhythms plays an active role in optimal inattention. Here, we tested the hypothesis that selective synchronization between rIFC and primary sensory neocortex occurs in these frequency bands during inattention. We used magnetoencephalography to investigate phase synchrony between primary somatosensory (SI) and rIFC regions during a cued-attention tactile detection task that required suppression of response to uncertain distractor stimuli. Attentional modulation of synchrony between SI and rIFC was found in both the alpha and beta frequency bands. This synchrony manifested as an increase in the alpha-band early after cue between non-attended SI representations and rIFC, and as a subsequent increase in beta-band synchrony closer to stimulus processing. Differences in phase synchrony were not found in several proximal control regions. These results are the first to reveal distinct interactions between primary sensory cortex and rIFC in humans and suggest that synchrony between rIFC and primary sensory representations plays a role in the inhibition of irrelevant sensory stimuli and motor responses.
右下额叶皮质（rIFC）通过抑制与行为无关的刺激和运动反应，与注意力控制有着特定关联。同样，最近的证据表明，初级感觉新皮质区域中的α（7 - 14赫兹）和β（15 - 29赫兹）振荡在未被注意的刺激表征中增强，这导致了一种假设，即这些节律的分配在最佳非注意状态中发挥着积极作用。在此，我们测试了这样一种假设：在非注意状态下，rIFC与初级感觉新皮质之间在这些频段会发生选择性同步。我们使用脑磁图来研究在一个提示性注意触觉检测任务中，初级体感（SI）区域和rIFC区域之间的相位同步，该任务需要抑制对不确定干扰刺激的反应。在α和β频段均发现了SI与rIFC之间同步的注意力调制。这种同步表现为在提示后早期，未被注意的SI表征与rIFC之间α频段同步增加，以及在更接近刺激处理时β频段同步随后增加。在几个近端控制区域未发现相位同步的差异。这些结果首次揭示了人类初级感觉皮质与rIFC之间独特的相互作用，并表明rIFC与初级感觉表征之间的同步在抑制无关感觉刺激和运动反应中发挥作用。
