summary: A new study investigates the brain mechanisms behind deep concentration. In this study, we utilize fMRI to investigate low-frequency fluctuations in brain networks during states of concentration and decreased concentration.
The researchers found that certain brain networks repeatedly synchronize and desynchronize, impacting an individual’s ability to maintain attention. This insight into the dynamic nature of brain activity could lead to better strategies to increase concentration and attention in various cognitive tasks.
Important facts:
- This study investigated the relationship between quasi-periodic brain network fluctuations and sustained attention, and found a pattern that repeats approximately every 20 seconds.
- The main brain networks involved include the fronto-parietal control network (FPCN) and the default mode network (DMN), which are responsible for task concentration and internal thinking, respectively.
- The results show that synchronization between these networks can predict changes in attention levels and provide a potential framework for improving cognitive function.
sauce: Georgia Tech
From completing puzzles to playing music to reading and exercising, Dolly Seeberger loved activities that required concentration as a child. “I felt like I was in the zone and that was when I felt the most fulfilled,” she recalls. “Hours feel like minutes.”
This deep state of concentration is essential for highly efficient work, but it is still not fully understood. Now, a new study led by Seeberger, a graduate student in the Department of Psychology, and her advisor, Eric Schumacher, a professor in the Department of Psychology, is uncovering the mechanisms behind this.
The interdisciplinary Georgia Tech team also includes Nan Shu, Sam Larson, and Shera Keilholz (Coulter School of Biomedical Engineering), as well as Marcus Marr (Department of Computing) and Christine Godwin (Department of Psychology).
The researchers’ study, “Time-varying functional connectivity predicts fluctuations in sustained attention in a continuous tapping task,” was published in the paper. Cognitive, emotional, and behavioral neuroscienceuses fMRI to investigate brain activity during deep and less focused tasks.
This study is the first to investigate low-frequency fluctuations between different networks in the brain during concentration, and could be a starting point for studying more complex behaviors and states of concentration.
“Your brain is dynamic. Nothing is just on or off,” Seeberger explains.
“This is the phenomenon we wanted to study: How do we get into the zone? Why do some people have better attention spans than others? Because this is something that can be trained. Is it? If so, can we help people make it better?”
dynamic brain
The team’s study is also the first to study the relationship between fluctuations in attention and brain network patterns within these low-frequency 20-second cycles.
“For quite some time, research on neural oscillations has focused on faster temporal frequencies, but the recognition of these very low frequency oscillations is relatively new,” Seeberger said. says.
“However, these low-frequency fluctuations may play an important role in controlling higher-order cognition, such as sustained attention.”
“One of the things we have found in previous studies is that there are natural fluctuations in the activity of certain brain networks. “occurs approximately every 20 seconds,” co-author Schumacher added, explaining that the team was interested in this pattern because it is quasi-periodic. . Exactly he is not repeated every 20 seconds, it varies from trial to trial and subject to subject.
By studying these quasi-periodic cycles, the research team hoped to measure the relationship between brain fluctuations in these networks and behavioral fluctuations that accompany changes in attention.
Caution is required
To measure attention, participants tapped in time with a metronome inside an fMRI scanner. By measuring the variation in each participant’s taps, the team was able to measure how “in the zone” participants were. Greater variability suggests that participants are less focused, and accurate taps suggest that participants are “in the zone.”
The researchers found that different areas of the brain, particularly the fronto-parietal control network (FPCN) and default mode network (DMN), became synchronized or desynchronized as subjects’ concentration levels changed.
The FPCN is engaged when a person is trying to stay on task, whereas the DMN is correlated with inward thinking (which participants may think about when they are less focused).
“If one is out of the zone, these two networks are synchronized and in phase at low frequencies,” Seeburger explains. “Once inside the zone, these networks become unsynchronized.”
The results show that 20-second patterns can help predict whether a person has sustained attention, potentially providing important insights for researchers developing tools and techniques that help people focus deeply. It suggests that.
big picture
Although the direct relationship between behavior and brain activity is still unclear, this 20-second pattern of brain fluctuations is universal across species.
“If you put someone in a scanner and their mind wanders, you can see their fluctuations. Quasi-periodic patterns like this are also found in rodents. It’s found in primates,” Schumacher says. “There’s something fundamental about this brain network activity.”
“I think this answers a really fundamental question about the relationship between behavior and brain activity,” he added.
“Understanding how these brain networks work together and influence behavior could lead to new treatments that help people organize their brain networks in the most efficient way.”
And while this simple task may not investigate complex behaviors, this study could serve as a starting point for moving to more complex behaviors and states of focus.
“Next, we would like to study sustained attention in a more naturalistic way,” Seeberger says. “We hope to further our understanding of attention and help people better understand their ability to control, maintain, and enhance their attention.”
About this attention and neuroscience research news
author: Jess Hunt-Ralston
sauce: Georgia Tech
contact: Jess Hunt-Ralston – Georgia Tech
image: Image credited to Neuroscience News
Original research: Open access.
“Time-varying functional connectivity predicts sustained attention fluctuations in a continuous tapping taskWritten by Dolly T. Seeberger et al. Cognitive, emotional, and behavioral neuroscience
abstract
Time-varying functional connectivity predicts sustained attention fluctuations in a continuous tapping task
The mechanisms by which large-scale brain networks contribute to sustained attention are unknown. Attention fluctuates from moment to moment, and this continuous change is consistent with dynamic changes in the functional connectivity between brain networks involved in internal and external allocation of attention.
This study investigated how brain network activity changes at different levels (or “zones”) of attentional focus.
Participants performed a finger-tapping task, and based on previous research, performance or conditions within the zone were identified by low reaction time variability and outside the zone as vice versa. In-zone sessions tended to occur earlier in the session than out-of-zone blocks. This is not surprising given that attention fluctuates over time.
By employing a new method of time-varying functional connectivity called quasi-periodic pattern analysis (i.e., reliable network-level low-frequency fluctuations), the default mode network (DMN) and task positive network (TPN) There is a significantly higher inverse correlation between in-zone and out-of-zone states.
Furthermore, it is the fronto-parietal control network (FPCN) switch that distinguishes between the two zonal states. Dorsal attention network (DAN) and DMN activity was asynchronous across both zone conditions.
During out-of-zone periods, FPCN synchronized with DMN, and during in-zone periods, FPCN switched to synchronization with DAN. In contrast, the ventral attention network (VAN) was more closely synchronized with the DMN during in-zone periods compared to out-of-zone periods.
These findings demonstrate that time-varying functional connectivity of low-frequency fluctuations across different brain networks changes in response to fluctuations in sustained attention and other processes that change over time.
