Division of Clinical Cognitive Sciences, Department of Neurology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Clinical Neuropsychology, Neuropsychological Therapy Centre, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
Division of Clinical Cognitive Sciences, Department of Neurology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany; Brain Imaging Facility, Interdisciplinary Centre for Clinical Research, RWTH Aachen, Germany.
Neuroimage. 2023 Dec 15;284:120454. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120454. Epub 2023 Nov 17.
Virtual Reality technology is increasingly used in attention rehabilitation for functional training purposes. However, the neural mechanisms by which Virtual Reality can affect attentional functioning are still unclear. The current study's objective is to examine the effects of stereoscopic vs. monoscopic presentation on neural processing during a visual attention task.
Thirty-two healthy participants performed a visual attention task in an immersive virtual environment that was displayed via MR-compatible video goggles in an MRI scanner. The paradigm altered between trials that required active engagement with the task and mere observation trials. Furthermore, the form of binocular presentation switched between monoscopic and stereoscopic presentation.
Analyses yielded evidence for increased activation in stereoscopic compared to monoscopic trials in the tertiary visual cortex area V3A as well as elevated activation in the dorsal attention network when engaging in the attention task. An additional ROI analysis of area V3A revealed significantly lower attentional engagement costs in stereoscopic conditions.
Results support previous findings suggesting that V3A is involved in binocular depth perception. Furthermore, heightened activation in V3A following stereoscopic presentation seemed to facilitate attentional engagement with the task. Considering that V3A is the origin of the dorso-dorsal, ventro-dorsal, and ventral visual processing pathways, we regard it as a gating area that decides which kind of visual perception is processed.
虚拟现实技术越来越多地用于注意力康复的功能训练目的。然而，虚拟现实影响注意力功能的神经机制仍不清楚。本研究的目的是检查立体与单眼呈现对视觉注意力任务中神经处理的影响。
32 名健康参与者在 MRI 扫描仪中的 MRI 兼容视频眼镜显示的沉浸式虚拟环境中执行视觉注意力任务。该范式在需要主动参与任务的试验和仅观察试验之间交替。此外，双眼呈现的形式在单眼和立体呈现之间切换。
分析结果表明，与单眼试验相比，在三级视觉皮层 V3A 中立体试验的激活增加，并且在进行注意力任务时，背侧注意网络的激活增加。V3A 的额外 ROI 分析表明，立体条件下的注意力投入成本明显较低。
结果支持了先前的研究结果，表明 V3A 参与了双眼深度感知。此外，立体呈现后 V3A 的激活似乎促进了对任务的注意力投入。考虑到 V3A 是背-背、腹-背和腹侧视觉处理途径的起源，我们认为它是一个门控区域，决定了哪种视觉感知被处理。
