Top-Down Control of Visual Attention by the Prefrontal Cortex. Functional Specialization and Long-Range Interactions

Abstract

The ability to select information that is relevant to current behavioral goals is the hallmark of voluntary attention and an essential part of our cognition. Attention tasks are a prime example to study at the neuronal level, how task related information can be selectively processed in the brain while irrelevant information is filtered out. Whereas, numerous studies have focused on elucidating the mechanisms of visual attention at the single neuron and population level in the visual cortices, considerably less work has been devoted to deciphering the distinct contribution of higher-order brain areas, which are known to be critical for the employment of attention. Among these areas, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) has long been considered a source of top-down signals that bias selection in early visual areas in favor of the attended features. Here, we review recent experimental data that support the role of PFC in attention. We examine the existing evidence for functional specialization within PFC and we discuss how long-range interactions between PFC subregions and posterior visual areas may be implemented in the brain and contribute to the attentional modulation of different measures of neural activity in visual cortices.

Spatial specificity of alpha oscillations in the human visual system

“…Here we extend this literature by demonstrating retinotopic specificity beyond early visual areas in an absence of visual input, extending to parietal regions. Parietal regions and the frontal eye fields have been related to a top‐down modulatory control within a variety of cognitive tasks and imaging modalities [for review, please refer Paneri and Gregoriou (), Shomstein (), and Silver and Kastner ()]. In line with the fMRI literature, ventral, dorsal, and parietal cortices displayed specialized location tuning properties (Figure ).…”

High‐definition transcranial direct current stimulation dissociates fronto‐visual theta lateralization during visual selective attention

“…Reviews of the functional specialization of PFC, specifically in the context of visual attention, have suggested that increased neural activity in the lateral PFC corresponds to target representations along with decreases during distractor representations, and that lesions of this area result in increased distractibility during cognitive performance (Chao & Knight, ; Lennert & Martinez‐Trujillo, ; Suzuki & Gottlieb, ; Gregoriou et al . ; Paneri & Gregoriou, ). These descriptions of lateral PFC involvement align nicely with our tDCS‐induced changes in the right lateral PFC's connectivity with posterior regions.…”

“…In contrast, the lateral PFC may play an important role in the suppression of distracting information, while the ventral PFC acts as a reorienting system to salient stimuli (Corbetta & Shulman, ; Corbetta et al . ; Paneri & Gregoriou, ). Further, these regions appear to be intricately connected to posterior cortex including parietal regions and bottom‐up processors, with hierarchical organization of these networks implicating PFC specifically in top‐down control mechanisms (Miller, ; Brass et al .…”

“…For example, there is a wealth of literature implicating medial prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate in the active monitoring of conflict or error produced by interfering stimuli (Botvinick et al 1999;Hazeltine et al 2000;van Veen et al 2001;Bunge et al 2002;Lau et al 2006). In contrast, the lateral PFC may play an important role in the suppression of distracting information, while the ventral PFC acts as a reorienting system to salient stimuli (Corbetta & Shulman, 2002;Corbetta et al 2008;Paneri & Gregoriou, 2017). Further, these regions appear to be intricately connected to posterior cortex including parietal regions and bottom-up processors, with hierarchical organization of these networks implicating PFC specifically in top-down control mechanisms (Miller, 2000;Brass et al 2005;Miller & D'Esposito, 2005).…”

Spatiotemporal Analysis of Category and Target-related Information Processing in the Brain during Object Detection

“…While majority of classical studies have considered 'object recognition' as a feed-forward brain process (DiCarlo et al, 2012;VanRullen, 2012), recent studies have argued against this view by providing evidence on the significant influence of top-down task-dependent processes on bottom-up sensorydriven inputs (Harel et al, 2011;Bar et al, 2001;Bar et al, 2006;Vaziri-Pashkam and Xu, 2017). The effects of task are generally imposed on sensory processing by mechanisms generally referred to as prediction (Summerfield et al, 2006), expectation (Puri et al, 2009;Meijs et al, 2018;Manahova et al, 2018) and most importantly attention (Stokes et al, 2009;Spyropoulos et al, 2018;Rohenkohl and Nobre, 2011;Battistoni et al, 2017;Summerfield and Egner, 2009;Paneri and Gregoriou, 2017).…”