Periodic Reporting for period 1 - DynamAtt (Dynamics of Attentional Networks in the Human Brain in Health and Disease:Evidence from Intracerebral and MEG Recordings)
Período documentado: 2017-01-01 hasta 2018-12-31
Additionally, high resolution brain activity was collected from 27 epileptic patients implanted with depth electrodes while they performed the Posner cueing task, testing their exogenous attention. The data obtained was used to test some of FORTIOR predictions, and to map the spatiotemporal dynamics of the responses across the brain to exogenous cues and targets. This studies were presented in seven international conferences and seminars, and resulted in three publications in international peer reviewed journals.
Better understanding attention mechanisms is highly relevant for everyday attention-critical tasks, such as operating heavy machinery, conducting medical procedures and driving. In the European Union, about 50,000 individuals are killed in transport accidents every year, the majority in road traffic accidents (http://ec.europa.eu/transport/infrastructure/doc/crash-cost.pdf). One of the main causes for accidents is human error, which often results from failures in attention processes (for example a failure to detect a pedestrian or to simultaneously monitor approaching vehicles in dense traffic). Using cell phones or texting while driving increases attentional load and thus result in a greater risk. Better understanding of the neural basis of attention and its constraints may aid in developing solutions to deal with this tragic problem. Indeed, any field in which distraction can have detrimental results may benefit from this research.
Additionally, this project will promote our knowledge of abnormal attention processing in hemispatial neglect. Worldwide, 15 million people suffer a stroke each year. Forty percent of right hemisphere stroke survivors will suffer from neglect, which is one of the most negative prognostic signs for rehabilitation success. The estimated economic burden of stroke is vast (e.g. in Europe the cost was approximately € 64.1 billion in 2010), so expanding the knowledge of normal and pathological attention mechanism underlying neglect and consequentially developing better rehabilitation strategies will have a direct impact on European society.