Neural Correlates of Spatial Attention and Target Detection in a Multi-Target Environment

Our ability to attend and respond in a multi-target environment is an essential and distinct human skill, as is dramatically demonstrated in stroke patients suffering from extinction. We performed a functional magnetic resonance imaging study to determine the neural anatomy associated with attending and responding to simultaneously presented targets. In healthy subjects, we tested the hypothesis that the right intraparietal sulcus (IPS) is associated both with the top-down direction of attention to multiple target locations and the bottom-up detection of multiple targets, whereas the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) is predominantly associated with the bottom-up detection of multiple targets. We used a cued target detection task with a high proportion of catch trials to separately estimate top-down cue-related and bottom-up target-related neural activity. Both cues and targets could be presented unilaterally or bilaterally. We found no evidence of target-related neural activation specific to bilateral situations in the TPJ, but observed both cue-related and target-related neural activation specific to bilateral situations in the right IPS and target-related neural activity specific to bilateral situations in the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). We conclude that the IPS and the IFG of the right hemisphere underlie our ability to attend and respond in a multi-target environment.