Frontal-to-Parietal Top-Down Causal Streams along the Dorsal Attention Network Exclusively Mediate Voluntary Orienting of Attention

Ozaki, T. · 2011 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0020079

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Summary

This study investigates the causal dynamics of the dorsal attention network (DAN) to resolve a contradiction between "dynamic" and "static" networking hypotheses regarding voluntary attention. While previous effective connectivity studies suggested that frontal-to-parietal causal streams mediate voluntary attention, resting-state functional connectivity studies indicated the DAN is intrinsically configured even without task demands. The authors aimed to determine whether these top-down causal streams are exclusive to voluntary orienting or present in less-attentive states. The researchers conducted an event-related fMRI study using Posner’s cueing paradigm with six healthy male participants. The experimental design included four conditions: valid (orienting), invalid, neutral (holding attention), and null-cued (fixation/inter-trial interval). To analyze effective connectivity, the authors employed partial Granger causality (pGC) based on multivariate vector autoregressive models. This method was chosen to factor out exogenous or latent influences from unmeasured variables, providing a more precise measure of causal relationships than conventional Granger causality. Regions of interest (ROIs) were selected from areas showing greater activation during orienting than withholding, including the human frontal eye field (hFEF), posterior parietal cortex (PPC), and visual cortices. Behavioral results confirmed successful attentional modulation, with significant differences in response times across conditions. The pGC analysis revealed that frontal-to-parietal top-down causal streams along the DAN appeared exclusively during the orienting condition. Specifically, the left hFEF sent causal streams to both left and right PPC, and the right hFEF sent streams to the left PPC and lateral occipital cortex. In contrast, these specific top-down streams were absent during holding, fixation, and inter-trial intervals. While causal streams from frontal to visual regions appeared during both orienting and fixation, the frontal-to-parietal streams were unique to voluntary orienting. These findings support the "dynamic networking" hypothesis, demonstrating that the DAN’s architecture flexibly changes based on attentional states. The study concludes that frontal-to-parietal top-down causal streams exclusively mediate voluntary covert orienting of attention. This suggests that neural representations in frontal regions, particularly the hFEF, occupy the top of the hierarchy for embodying voluntary attentional control, distinct from the static functional connectivity observed in resting states.

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• attention selective divided