Original Research Article
Challenge-driven attention: Interacting frontal and brainstem systems
Rajeev D.S. Raizada 1* and Russell A. Poldrack 2
1 Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington, USA
2 Department of Psychology, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, Brain Research Institute, University of California Los Angeles, USA
2 Department of Psychology, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, Brain Research Institute, University of California Los Angeles, USA
The world is an unpredictable place, presenting challenges that fl uctuate from moment to moment. However, the neural systems for responding to such challenges are far from fully understood. Using fMRI, we studied an audiovisual task in which the trials’ diffi culty and onset times varied unpredictably. Two regions were found to increase their activation for challenging trials, with their activities strongly correlated: right frontal cortex and the brainstem. The frontal area matched regions found in previous human studies of cognitive control, and activated in a graded manner with increasing task diffi culty. The brainstem responded only to the most diffi cult trials, showing a phasic activity pattern paralleling locus coeruleus recordings in monkeys. These results reveal a bridge between animal and human studies, and suggest interacting roles for the brainstem and right frontal cortex: the brainstem may signal that an attentional challenge is occurring, while right frontal cortex allocates cognitive resources in response.
Keywords: noradrenaline, cognitive resources, locus coeruleus, prefrontal cortex
Copyright: © 2008 Raizada and Poldrack. This is an open-access article subject to an exclusive license agreement between the authors and the Frontiers Research Foundation, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited.
*Correspondence: Rajeev D. S. Raizada, Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Box 357988, Seattle WA 98195, USA. e-mail: raizada@u.washington.edu
Citation: Raizada RD and Poldrack RA (2008) Challenge-driven attention: Interacting frontal and brainstem systems. Front. Hum. Neurosci. (2007) 1:3. doi:10.3389/neuro.09.003.2007
Received: 12 September 2007; paper pending published: 29 November 2007; accepted: 03 January 2008; published online: 28 March 2008.
Edited by:
Robert T. Knight, University of California Berkeley, USA
Reviewed by:
Donald T. Stuss, Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, Canada; University of Toronto, Canada
Hans-Jochen Heinze, Otto-von-Guericke-University, Germany; University of Magdeburg, Germany
Hans-Jochen Heinze, Otto-von-Guericke-University, Germany; University of Magdeburg, Germany
*Correspondence: Rajeev D. S. Raizada, Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Box 357988, Seattle WA 98195, USA. e-mail: raizada@u.washington.edu
