Hemodynamics in Prefrontal and Temporal Cortex during Attentional Control Task

Abstract

This paper discusses hemodynamics in both the prefrontal and temporal cortex when subjects taking in glucose perform the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT). PASAT can greatly stress the working memory associated with attention. Attention is well known as the base of various higher-order cognitive functions. Some studies evaluate how the auditory attentional function was activated using fMRI during Clinical Assessment for Attention (CAT), but few reports use Near-infrared Spectroscopy NIRS. In previous research studies, the authors reported that oxidized hemoglobin concentration HbO increased in the left DLPFC area during PASAT. In this study, two types of NIRS were used to evaluate HbO for both the prefrontal and temporal cortex. Multivariable estimated models of auto-regressive form with upper triangular estimates are applied to analyze the results from the experiment. The models are given by hierarchical decomposition analysis which shows the properties of each stage.