[FMRI study of visual task switching in healthy individuals]

The present study was aimed, first, at developing a visual switching task for fMRI research and, second, at identification of the brain regions involved in task switching. Forty eight healthy individuals (from 21 to 56 years of age) participated in the study. The designed visual switching task was relatively short, it consisted of an easy stimulus set and involved a simple condition, in which participants had to shift their attention between two task conditions (classifying figures according to their form or number). Thus, this developed testing procedure can further be used to assess special populations, including patients with brain damage who cannot do monotonous tasks for a long period of time and have language impairments. The results of this testing technique revealed that task switching is carried out by an interconnected neuronal network, consisting of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, inferior parietal area, secondary visual area, supplementary motor area and cerebellum cortex of both hemispheres.