Functional similarity of medial superior parietal areas for shift-selective attention signals in humans and monkeys

We continually shift our attention between items in the visual environment. These attention shifts are usually based on task relevance (top-down) or the saliency of a sudden, unexpected stimulus (bottom-up), and are typically followed by goal-directed actions. It could be argued that any species that can covertly shift its focus of attention will rely on similar, evolutionarily-conserved neural substrates for processing such shift-signals. To address this possibility, we performed comparative fMRI experiments in humans and monkeys, combining traditional, and novel, data-driven analytical approaches. Specifically, we examined correspondences between monkey and human brain areas activated during covert attention shifts. When shift events were compared to stay events, the medial (superior) parietal (mSPL) and inferior parietal lobes showed similar shift sensitivities across species, whereas frontal activations were stronger in monkeys. To identify, in a data-driven manner, monkey regions that corresponded with human shift-selective SPL, we used a novel inter-species beta-correlation (ISBC) strategy whereby task-related beta-values were correlated across voxels or regions-of-interest in the two species. Monkey medial parietal areas V6/V6A most consistently correlated with shift-selective human mSPL. Our results indicate that both species recruit corresponding, evolutionarily-conserved regions within the medial superior parietal lobe for shifting spatial attention.

Publication year:2018

BOF-keylabel:yes

IOF-keylabel:yes

BOF-publication weight:6

CSS-citation score:1

Authors:International

Authors from:Higher Education

Accessibility:Closed