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Updated: Nov 21, 2025

Intracortical Inhibition Within the Primary Motor Cortex Can Be Modulated by Changing the Focus of Attention
Published on: September 11, 2017
The human endogenous attentional control network includes a ventro-temporal cortical node
Ilaria Sani1,2, Heiko Stemmann3, Bradley Caron4
1Laboratory of Neural Systems, The Rockefeller University, 1230 York Avenue, New York, NY, 10065, USA. ilaria.sani@unige.ch.
Abstract:
Endogenous attention is the cognitive function that selects the relevant pieces of sensory information to achieve goals and it is known to be controlled by dorsal fronto-parietal brain areas. Here we expand this notion by identifying a control attention area located in the temporal lobe. By combining a demanding behavioral paradigm with functional neuroimaging and diffusion tractography, we show that like fronto-parietal attentional areas, the human posterior inferotemporal cortex exhibits significant attentional modulatory activity. This area is functionally distinct from surrounding cortical areas, and is directly connected to parietal and frontal attentional regions. These results show that attentional control spans three cortical lobes and overarches large distances through fiber pathways that run orthogonally to the dominant anterior-posterior axes of sensory processing, thus suggesting a different organizing principle for cognitive control.
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