FUNCTIONAL NETWORK ACTIVITY MEDIATING THE SHIFT OF ATTENTIONAL RESOURCES DURING INATTENTIONAL DEAFNESS IN AN AVIATION PURSUIT TASK
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1
University of California, San Diego, Department of Cognitive Science, United States
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2
University of California, San Diego, United States
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3
National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Universal Communication Research Institute, Japan
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4
University of California, San Diego, Neurosciences Graduate Program, United States
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5
National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Japan
Decreased perception of auditory cues and alarms under heavy workload, a phenomenon known as inattentional deafness, can occur in various settings of interest in neuroergonomics, including aviation. The neurophysiology underlying inattentional deafness remains unclear, but metabolic and oscillatory cortical network dynamics are seemingly involved. Electrophysiological findings regarding inattentional deafness in a flying task (Callan, Gateau, Durantin, Gonthier, Dehais, 2018) implicate aberrant phase-phase coupling, measured as reduced stimulus-evoked phase synchrony in theta and alpha frequencies (6-14 Hz). Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) results in a flying task (Durantin, Dehais, Gonthier, Terzibas, Callan, 2017) reveal that inattentional deafness corresponds with significantly greater activity in frontal regions. It is believed that an attentional bottleneck occurs when subjects shift more internal attentional resources to the main flying task during periods of poor flying performance or high workload, thereby reducing attentional resources dedicated to audition. Consistent with this belief, Durantin et al. (2017) found inhibitory connectivity from frontal regions may be suppressing auditory processing in periods of high workload.
In this study, we hypothesize that oscillatory amplitude, frequency, or phase modulation, and higher-order cross-frequency coupling mechanisms, mediate coordination of attentional resources among oscillatory brain networks. To confirm this hypothesis, we emphasize a multimodal neuroimaging approach using mutually informed electrophysiological and metabolic measures of these oscillatory dynamics, seeking to provide converging forms of evidence regarding their neurophysiological substrate (Dale et al., 2000). For now, however, we present our fMRI findings.
We designed a flying task in a simulated aviation environment and had subjects participate in both active and passive conditions of this task. During the active condition of this task, 17 subjects flew behind a target plane at experimentally manipulated headings, speeds, and distances, and were tasked to maintain pursuit of the target plane and train a crosshair on the target plane by maneuvering their own plane. During the passive condition of this task, subjects passively viewed pre-recorded performances of the flying condition and rotated the joystick as a motor control. During both active and passive conditions, subjects were tasked with responding to a near-perceptual-threshold auditory stimulus (tracked using an adaptive staircase method 1-up-1-down). With this paradigm, we predicted that subjects would be less able to detect this stimulus during the active condition due to inattentional deafness. We further predicted that fMRI activation during inattentional deafness in auditory areas would decrease in the active condition relative to the passive condition, as well as increase in frontal regions in the active condition relative to the passive condition, indicating functional inhibition of auditory areas.
We conducted event-related fMRI analyses time-locked to the onset of the near-threshold auditory cue. The passive>active contrast during missed cues (Figure 1) shows significant activity in left auditory areas (p < 0.005; small volume correction based on left analog of MNI coordinate (48,-12,-8), given in Durantin et al., 2017, with a 6mm radius sphere search area; T=3.75 pFWE < 0.05, MNI -50,-10,-10 peak). This indicates that auditory areas are inactive when subjects missed the auditory cues, further indicating that auditory areas need be active in order to hear the auditory cues. Largely significant activity in auditory areas distinguishing heard and missed cues in both active and passive conditions confirms this. This inactivity in auditory areas may be the result of functional inhibition and the shift of attentional resources to the flying task. The active>passive contrast during missed cues (Figure 2) shows significant activity in the right middle frontal gyrus (p<0.0001) and left and right cerebellum (p<0.0001), perhaps indicating inhibitory frontal activity along with greater cerebellar corrective motor control demands during periods of inattentional deafness.
The next steps for this study will be to conduct functional connectivity analyses to determine metabolic coupling among these brain regions. We will then incorporate MEG data collected from the same subjects while they performed the same task to examine oscillatory modulation and coupling within and among these brain regions. Ultimately, we hope to inform the future design of neuroergonomic brain-computer interfaces and adaptive flight systems that leverage measures of relevant oscillatory modulation and coupling to infer and enhance cognitive states of the user/pilot.
References
Callan, D. E., Gateau, T., Durantin, G., Gonthier, N., Dehais, F. (2018). Disruption in neural phase synchrony is related to identification of inattentional deafness in real-world setting. Human brain mapping, 2018, 1-13.
Dale, A. M., Liu, A. K., Fischl, B. R., Buckner, R. L., Belliveau, J. W., Lewine, J. D., & Halgren, E. (2000). Dynamic statistical parametric mapping: combining fMRI and MEG for high-resolution imaging of cortical activity. Neuron, 26(1), 55-67.
Durantin, G., Dehais, F., Gonthier, N., Terzibas, C., & Callan, D. E. (2017). Neural signature of inattentional deafness. Human brain mapping, 38(11), 5440-5455.
Keywords:
Aviation,
inattentional deafness,
Attention,
multimodal,
Neural oscillations,
fMRI,
MEG
Conference:
2nd International Neuroergonomics Conference, Philadelphia, PA, United States, 27 Jun - 29 Jun, 2018.
Presentation Type:
Oral Presentation
Topic:
Neuroergonomics
Citation:
Gougelet
RJ,
Terzibas
C,
Voytek
B and
Callan
D
(2019). FUNCTIONAL NETWORK ACTIVITY MEDIATING THE SHIFT OF ATTENTIONAL RESOURCES DURING INATTENTIONAL DEAFNESS IN AN AVIATION PURSUIT TASK.
Conference Abstract:
2nd International Neuroergonomics Conference.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2018.227.00117
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Received:
11 Apr 2018;
Published Online:
27 Sep 2019.
*
Correspondence:
Mr. Robert J Gougelet, University of California, San Diego, Department of Cognitive Science, San Diego, CA, United States, rgougele@ucsd.edu