Age-related changes in brain activation associated with dimensional shifts of attention: an fMRI study

Brain activation associated with dimensional shifts of attention was measured in 14 children and 13 adults using 4 T fMRI. Across all participants, dimensional shifting was associated with activity in a distributed frontoparietal network, including superior parietal cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, inferior frontal junction, and the pre-supplementary motor region. There were also age-related differences in brain activity, with children but not adults showing an effect of dimension shifting in the right superior frontal sulcus, and adults but not children showing an effect of dimension shifting in the left superior parietal cortex and the right thalamus. These differences were likely not attributable to behavioral differences as children and adults performed comparably. Implications for neurodevelopmental accounts of shifting are discussed.