The distinct role of human PIT in attention control
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Science and Mental Health, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
- Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center, China
Figures
Figure 1
Schematic representation of the experimental paradigm for Experiment 1.
(A) The task was to report whether the direction of coherent motion on the attended side matched that of the white arrow. Note: The black arrow, representing one potential direction for the coherent dot movement, is used for illustrative purposes and was not actually presented during the experiment. (B) Pattern 1 and pattern 2, consisting of iso-luminant red and green dots, were presented sequentially. The task was to compare the color ratios of these patterns on the attended side and respond accordingly if any changes in the color ratio were detected. (C) Pattern 1 and pattern 2, consisting of equal number of small shapes (circles and squares), were presented sequentially. The task was to compare the shape ratios of these patterns on the attended side and respond accordingly if any changes in the shape ratio were detected.
Figure 2
Schematic depiction of the experimental design for Experiment 2.
Following the flashing of the central point, a cue is presented. In the dot condition, a dot appears on the attended side, prompting participants to report its relative position. In the blank condition, participants are instructed not to press any keys. (Light gray dots: serve as indicators, showing participants the potential target locations during the experiment.)
Figure 3
Schematic overview of the experimental paradigm for Experiment 3.
At the start of the ‘face run’, participants were instructed to pay heightened attention to the face images throughout that specific run. Following the central point’s flashing sequence, a cue and bilateral images were presented. Participants first judged if the movement direction of the attended image aligned with the central arrow. Upon the central point changing to green, participants then responded based on the content of the attended image.
Figure 4
Functional localization of human posterior inferotemporal cortex (hPIT).
(A) The intersection of three maps of three block tasks on one typical participant (S02). The cortical areas which are attached in red have shown significant activation in all three attentional tasks. (B) The exact position of hPIT. Left: Positions of fusiform face area (FFA) and hPIT in statistical parametric maps of the contrast (attend face – attend scene) (p=0.05) (top) and hPIT in intersection map on the right hemisphere of S02. Right: The location of hPIT on both hemispheres of S02 is circled by a white line. The cortical areas which are attached in red have shown significant activation in all three attentional tasks. (C) The positions of hPIT, occipital face area (OFA), and FFA of 15 participants overlapped on the surface of MNI152_2009c, with larger numerical values (manifested as deeper colors) indicating a higher degree of overlap among participants. The color scale ranging from gray to red delineates the spatial distribution of the hPIT, while the scale from gray to blue represents the FFA, and gray to yellow signifies the OFA.
Figure 5 with 1 supplement
Attentional modulation in different brain regions.
(A) The modulation pattern of V1, human posterior inferotemporal cortex (hPIT), medial temporal visual area (MT), intraparietal sulcus (IPS), frontal eye fields (FEF), temporal parietal junction (TPJ), and ventral frontal cortex (VFC) in condition blank (blue bar) and condition dot (pink bar), using beta of contrast: (attended – unattended [attend contralateral – attend ipsilateral]). The modulation difference of attention between condition blank and condition dot reached a significant level in posterior inferotemporal cortex (PITd) and MT. (B) The modulation pattern of hPIT, lateral-occipital cortex (LOp), and fusiform face area (FFA) in condition blank (blue bar) and condition dot (pink bar). Error bars indicate 95% confidence interval (n=15). Statistical significance was assessed using a two-tailed paired t-test. *** p<0.001; ** p<0.01; * p<0.05.
Figure 5—figure supplement 1
The top-down attentional modulation (attend – baseline) in bilateral frontal and parietal regions during the blank condition.
Error bars indicate 95% confidence interval (n=15).
Figure 6
Response and attentional modulation of human posterior inferotemporal cortex (hPIT) to images of different categories.
(A) The activation level of hPIT when attending to or not attending to images of different categories. Red bars indicate the condition with attention in the receptive field (attended), while blue bars indicate the condition with attention on the other side (unattended). Bars with higher chroma represent high load condition, lower chroma represent low load condition. (B) The modulation pattern of hPIT when presenting different categories of images with different attentional load. White bars represent the condition with low-load attention. Gray bars represent condition with high-load attention. (C) The attentional load effect (high load – low load) of bilateral hPIT, averaged across three categories. Error bars indicate 95% confidence interval (n=15).
Figure 7
Functional connectivity analysis of human posterior inferotemporal cortex (hPIT) and its neighboring areas.
(A) Activation map showing beta of contrast (attend contra moving dot – baseline) (p<0.01, uncorrected) and the location of critical nodes in dorsal and ventral attentional network (VAN) on one typical subject (S03). (B) Thresholded map showing functional connectivity of seed sphere right-hemi hPIT, right-hemi fusiform face area (FFA), and right-hemi lateral-occipital cortex (LOp) (Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient >0.2, p<0.05, uncorrected), averaged across subjects and projected onto the surface of standard brain MNI152_2009c. Color bar attached indicates the intensity of activation (A) and correlation (B). (C) The relative location of LOp, hPIT, and FFA on the inflated cortical surface of parcellation map (Glasser’s atlas). (D) Strength of functional connectivity of seed hPIT, FFA, and LOp with DAN and VAN. Error bars indicate 95% confidence interval (n=15). *** indicates the significance of p<0.001. * indicates the significance of p<0.05. (E) Circular plot for functional connectivity of seed hPIT, FFA, and LOp with nodes of attentional network of right hemisphere, with pink lines indicating connection with nodes of DAN, blue lines indicating nodes of VAN. Connections to left hemisphere nodes show similar but weaker trends. Opacity of each line connecting seed and nodes represents the rank of its connectivity strength (the strongest 100%, the middle 44%, the weakest 11%). The width of each line is scaled to its cubic numerical intensities of connectivity.
Additional files
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Supplementary file 1
Exact location and cluster size of human posterior inferotemporal cortex (hPIT) in every subject’s cortical surface.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/107111/elife-107111-supp1-v1.docx
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Supplementary file 2
Summary table of attentional modulation (signal change%) across ROIs (human posterior inferotemporal cortex [hPIT], V1, medial temporal visual area [MT], intraparietal sulcus [IPS], frontal eye fields [FEF], temporal parietal junction [TPJ], ventral frontal cortex [VFC], fusiform face area [FFA], lateral-occipital cortex [LOp]) under both blank and dot conditions.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/107111/elife-107111-supp2-v1.docx
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Supplementary file 3
Results of one-sample t-test measuring the modulation of attention by beta value of contrast (attend contralateral – attend ipsilateral).
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/107111/elife-107111-supp3-v1.docx
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MDAR checklist
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/107111/elife-107111-mdarchecklist1-v1.pdf
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The distinct role of human PIT in attention control
eLife 14:RP107111.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.107111.3
