Fluctuation in cortical excitation/inhibition modulates capability of attention across time scales ranging from hours to seconds.
Cereb Cortex
; 34(7)2024 Jul 03.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-39076112
ABSTRACT
Sustained attention, as the basis of general cognitive ability, naturally varies across different time scales, spanning from hours, e.g. from wakefulness to drowsiness state, to seconds, e.g. trial-by-trail fluctuation in a task session. Whether there is a unified mechanism underneath such trans-scale variability remains unclear. Here we show that fluctuation of cortical excitation/inhibition (E/I) is a strong modulator to sustained attention in humans across time scales. First, we observed the ability to attend varied across different brain states (wakefulness, postprandial somnolence, sleep deprived), as well as within any single state with larger swings. Second, regardless of the time scale involved, we found highly attentive state was always linked to more balanced cortical E/I characterized by electroencephalography (EEG) features, while deviations from the balanced state led to temporal decline in attention, suggesting the fluctuation of cortical E/I as a common mechanism underneath trans-scale attentional variability. Furthermore, we found the variations of both sustained attention and cortical E/I indices exhibited fractal structure in the temporal domain, exhibiting features of self-similarity. Taken together, these results demonstrate that sustained attention naturally varies across different time scales in a more complex way than previously appreciated, with the cortical E/I as a shared neurophysiological modulator.
Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Atenção
/
Vigília
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Córtex Cerebral
/
Eletroencefalografia
Limite:
Adult
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Female
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Humans
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Male
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Cereb Cortex
Assunto da revista:
CEREBRO
Ano de publicação:
2024
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
China