Comparison of fMRI activation patterns for test and training procedures of alertness and focused attention

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Clemens, Benjamin^; | Zvyagintsev, Mikhail | Sack, Alexander T. | Heinecke, Armin | Willmes, Klaus^; | Sturm, Walter

Affiliations: Neurological Clinic, Section Neuropsychology, RWTH Aachen University Hospital, Aachen, Germany | Interdisciplinary Center for Clinical Research, RWTH Aachen University Hospital, Aachen, Germany | Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Maastricht University, The Netherlands | Neurological Clinic, Clinical Neuropsychology, RWTH Aachen University Hospital, Aachen, Germany

Note: [] Corresponding author: Dr. Benjamin Clemens, RWTH Aachen University Hospital, Neurological Clinic, Section Neuropsychology ; Pauwelsstrasse 30, 52074 Aachen, Germany. Tel.: +49 241 80 89909; Fax: +49 241 80 82598; E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: Purpose: Behavioural studies of attention training after brain damage have shown that only training procedures specifically related to the impaired attention function lead to significant improvements in the respective attention domain when using psychometric tests addressing these functions. The main objective of this fMRI study was to investigate specific as well as common neural correlates of alertness and focused attention and to assess the degree of neural overlap for two different tasks of the same attention function. Methods: To investigate how different attention functions are processed, we tested 32 healthy participants using fMRI. Each participant was randomly assigned to the alertness (n = 16) or the focused attention (n = 16) group, where participants underwent two different attention tasks, one being a diagnostic computerized test procedure and the other being a computer-game like training procedure. Results: The present results show similar activation patterns when assessing the same attention function with two different tasks. Activation overlap for test and training tasks of the same attention function was more clear-cut than the activation overlap for two different attention functions. Conclusions: Clinically validated diagnostic test paradigms and computer game-like training paradigms for both alertness and focused attention activated common brain systems processing the respective attention function. These findings may help to explain the beneficial effect of specifically designed attentional training procedures and the validity of related psychometric tests in detecting specific changes in performance after training of the same attention functions.

Keywords: Alertness, fMRI, focused attention, neuropsychological test, neuropsychological training, clinical neuropsychology

DOI: 10.3233/RNN-120266

Journal: Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience, vol. 31, no. 3, pp. 311-336, 2013