Summary: New research examines the brain mechanisms behind deep attention. The study uses fMRI to examine low-frequency fluctuations in brain networks during focused and less focused states.
The team found that certain brain networks are synchronized and asynchronous, which affects a person’s ability to maintain attention. This understanding of the dynamic nature of brain activity may lead to better strategies for enhancing focus and attention in various cognitive tasks.
Key facts:
- The study examines the relationship between quasi-periodic brain network fluctuations and sustained attention, finding a pattern that repeats approximately every 20 seconds.
- Key brain networks involved include the fronto-parietal control network (FPCN) and the default mode network (DMN), which play roles in executive attention and internal thinking, respectively.
- The results indicate that convergence between these networks can predict changes in attention levels, providing a framework for improving cognitive function.
Source: Georgia Institute of Technology
From completing puzzles and playing music to reading and exercising, Dolly Seberger loves activities that require her full attention while growing up. “Those were the moments when I felt so happy, like I was in the zone,” she recalls. “Hours pass, but feel like minutes.”
While this deep state of focus is essential for highly effective work, it is still not fully understood. Now, a new study led by Seberger, a graduate student in the School of Psychology, along with her mentor Eric Schumacher, a professor in the School of Psychology, is uncovering the mechanisms behind it.
The interdisciplinary Georgia Tech team also includes Nan Xu, Sam Larson, and Sheila Keilholz (Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering), along with Marcus Ma (College of Computing) and Christine Godwin (School of Psychology).
The researchers’ study, “Time-varying functional connectivity predicts sustained attentional variability during continuous tapping.” Cognitive, affective and behavioral neurosciencefMRI examines brain activity during periods of deep concentration and less concentration.
The work is the first to investigate low-frequency fluctuations between different networks in the brain during attention and can be used as a springboard for studying more complex behaviors and conditions of attention.
“Your mind is flexible. Nothing is on or off,” explains Seeburger.
“This is the phenomenon we wanted to study. How does one enter the zone? Why can some people stay focused better than others? Is this something that can be trained? If so, can we help people improve?”
A flexible brain
The team’s work is the first to study the relationship between changes in attention and brain network patterns between these low-frequency 20-second cycles.
“For some time, research on neural oscillations has focused on fast transients, and the appreciation of these very low-frequency oscillations is relatively new,” Seeburger says.
But these low-frequency oscillations may play a key role in controlling hyperawareness such as sustained attention.
“One of the things we found in previous research is that there is a natural variability in activity in some brain networks. “When a subject is in the MRI scanner and not doing a particular task, we see a fluctuation that occurs every 20 seconds,” said co-author Schumacher.
By studying these quasi-periodic cycles, the team hopes to measure the relationship between brain fluctuations in these networks and behavioral fluctuations associated with changes in attention.
Your attention is needed
To measure attention, participants tapped with a metronome while in the fMRI scanner. The team could measure how “in the zone” participants were by measuring how much variability there was in each participant’s taps—more variability indicated the participant was not paying attention, while accurate tapping indicated the participant was “in the zone.”
The researchers found that when a subject’s level of attention changed, different brain regions synchronized and desynchronized, particularly the fronto-parietal control network (FPCN) and the default mode network (DMN).
The FPCN is engaged when a person is trying to stay on task, whereas the DMN is associated with introspective thoughts (probably when the participant is less focused).
“When one is out of zone, these two networks are synchronized and in low frequency,” Seberger explains. “When someone is in the zone, these networks don’t match.”
The results suggest that 20-second patterns can help predict whether a person is paying attention or not, and researchers can provide key insights into developing tools and techniques to help us focus more deeply.
The big picture
Although a direct link between behavior and brain activity remains unknown, these 20-second patterns of brain fluctuations are observed globally and across species.
“If you put someone in a scanner and their mind is wandering, you get these changes. You can find these quasi-periodic patterns in mice. You can find it in primates,” says Schumacher. “There is something fundamental in the activity of this brain network.”
“I think it answers a really fundamental question about the relationship between behavior and brain activity,” he adds.
“Understanding how these brain networks work together and influence behavior will lead to new therapies that help people organize brain networks more effectively.”
And while this simple task examines complex behaviors, the study can serve as a springboard for moving to more complex behaviors and focus situations.
“Next, I want to study sustained attention in a more natural way,” Seberger says. “I hope we can better understand focus awareness and help people better manage, sustain and increase their ability to control it.”
So attention and neuroscience research news
Author: Jess Hunt-Ralston
Source: Georgia Institute of Technology
Contact: Jess Hunt-Ralston – Georgia Institute of Technology
Image: Image credited to Neuroscience News.
Preliminary study: Open Access.
“Time-varying functional connectivity predicts sustained attentional variability in a continuous tapping task” by Dolly T. Seeburger et al. Cognitive, affective and behavioral neuroscience
Draft
Time-varying functional connectivity predicts sustained attentional variability in a continuous tapping task
The mechanisms by which large-scale brain networks contribute to sustained attention are unknown. Attention changes from moment to moment, and this continuous change is consistent with dynamic changes in the functional connectivity between brain networks involved in the division of internal and external attention.
In this study, we examined how brain network activity varies across different levels of attention (ie, “zones”).
Participants performed a finger-tapping task and, guided by previous research, in-zone performance or conditions were characterized by minimal reaction time differences and out-of-zone as reversals. In-zone blocks occur earlier in the session than out-of-zone blocks. This is not surprising given the way attention changes over time.
Employing a novel method of time-varying functional connectivity, quasi-temporal pattern analysis (i.e., reliable, low-frequency fluctuations at the network level) of activity between the default mode network (DMN) and the functionally positive network (TPN) during in-zone states and out-of-zone It is highly anti-correlated during out states.
Additionally, the frontoparietal control network (FPCN) switch separates the two zone states. In both zone states, activity in the dorsal attention network (DAN) and DMN was deregulated.
During out-of-zone periods, FPCN is synchronized with DMN, while in-zone, FPCN is switched to be synchronized with DAN. In contrast, the ventral attention network (VAN) was more closely aligned with the DMN during zonal periods compared to non-zonal periods.
These findings suggest that the time-varying functional connectivity of low-frequency fluctuations across different brain networks varies with sustained attentional fluctuations or other processes that change over time.