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Frontal lobes and attention: Processes and networks, fractionation and integration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 March 2006

DONALD T. STUSS
DONALD T. STUSS
Affiliation:
Baycrest, Rotman Research Institute, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Departments of Medicine (Neurology, Rehabilitation Science) and Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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Abstract

The frontal lobes (FL), are they a general adaptive global capacity processor, or a series of fractionated processes? Our lesion studies focusing on attention have demonstrated impairments in distinct processes due to pathology in different frontal regions, implying fractionation of the “supervisory system.” However, when task demands are manipulated, it becomes evident that the frontal lobes are not just a series of independent processes. Increased complexity of task demands elicits greater involvement of frontal regions along a fixed network related to a general activation process. For some task demands, one or more anatomically distinct frontal processes may be recruited. In other conditions, there is a bottom-up nonfrontal/frontal network, with impairment noted maximally for the lesser task demands in the nonfrontal automatic processing regions, and then as task demands change, increased involvement of different frontal (more “strategic”) regions, until it appears all frontal regions are involved. With other measures, the network is top-down, with impairment in the measure first noted in the frontal region and then, with changing task demands, involving a posterior region. Adaptability is not just a property of FL, it is the fluid recruitment of different processes anywhere in the brain as required by the current task. (JINS, 2006, 12, 261–271.)

Keywords

Frontal lobesAttentionProcess fractionationNeural networksBrain adaptabilityProcess recruitment
Type
SYMPOSIUM
Information
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , March 2006 , pp. 261 - 271
Copyright
© 2006 The International Neuropsychological Society

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