Imaging Brain Attention Systems: Control and Selection in Vision

Selective attention is an essential cognitive ability that permits us to effectively process and act upon relevant information while ignoring distracting events. The human capacity to focus attention is at the core of mental functioning. Elucidating the neural bases of human selective attention remains a key challenge for neuroscience and represents an essential aim in translational efforts to ameliorate attentional deficits in a wide variety of neurological and psychiatric disorders. In this chapter, we discuss how functional imaging methods have helped us to understand fundamental aspects of attention: How attention is controlled, and how this control results in the selection of relevant stimuli. Work from our group and from others will be discussed. We will focus on fMRI methods, but where appropriate will include related discussion of electromagnetic recording methods used in conjunction with fMRI.