Nature Neuroscience
3, 292 - 297 (2000)
doi:10.1038/73009
Voluntary orienting is dissociated from target detection in human posterior
parietal cortexMaurizio Corbetta1, 2, 3, J. Michelle Kincade1, 4, John M. Ollinger2, Marc P. McAvoy2
& Gordon L. Shulman11
Department of Neurology and Neurological Surgery, Washington
University School of Medicine, 4525 Scott Avenue,
St. Louis, Missouri 63110, USA
2
Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University
School of Medicine, 4525 Scott Avenue, St. Louis
, Missouri 63110, USA
3
Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Washington
University School of Medicine, 4525 Scott Avenue,
St. Louis, Missouri 63110, USA
4
Department of Psychology, Washington University School
of Medicine, 4525 Scott Avenue, St. Louis,
Missouri 63110, USA
Correspondence should be addressed to Maurizio Corbetta mau@npg.wustl.eduHuman ability to attend to visual stimuli based on their spatial locations
requires the parietal cortex. One hypothesis maintains that parietal cortex
controls the voluntary orienting of attention toward a location of interest.
Another hypothesis emphasizes its role in reorienting attention toward visual
targets appearing at unattended locations. Here, using event-related functional
magnetic resonance (ER-fMRI), we show that distinct parietal regions mediated
these different attentional processes. Cortical activation occurred primarily
in the intraparietal sulcus when a location was attended before visual-target
presentation, but in the right temporoparietal junction when the target was
detected, particularly at an unattended location.
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