Interaction of the salience network, ventral attention network, dorsal attention network and default mode network in neonates and early development of the bottom-up attention system

Valeria Onofrj,Richard Wise,Cesare Colosimo,Massimo Caulo,Antonio Maria Chiarelli

doi:10.1007/s00429-022-02477-y

Abstract

The salience network (SN), ventral attention network (VAN), dorsal attention network (DAN) and default mode network (DMN) have shown significant interactions and overlapping functions in bottom-up and top-down mechanisms of attention. In the present study, we tested if the SN, VAN, DAN and DMN connectivity can infer the gestational age (GA) at birth in a study group of 88 healthy neonates, scanned at 40weeks of post-menstrual age, and with GA at birth ranging from 28 to 40weeks. We also ascertained whether the connectivity within each of the SN, VAN, DAN and DMN was able to infer the average functional connectivity of the others. The ability to infer GA at birth or another network's connectivity was evaluated using a multivariate data-driven framework. The VAN, DAN and the DMN inferred the GA at birth (p < 0.05). The SN, DMN and VAN were able to infer the average connectivity of the other networks (p < 0.05). Mediation analysis between VAN's and DAN's inference on GA at birth found reciprocal transmittance of change with GA at birth of VAN's and DAN's connectivity (p < 0.05). Our findings suggest that the VAN has a prominent role in bottom-up salience detection in early infancy and that the role of the VAN and the SN may overlap in the bottom-up control of attention.

Highlights

In order to survive the changes and challenges of the external world we need the ability to focus on the multiple sources of stimuli that constantly compete for our attention, the so called “saliency detection”
First we explored the association with gestational age (GA) at birth and the resting-state Functional Connectivity extracted from the Salience Network (SN), the ventral attention network (VAN), the Dorsal Attention Network (DAN) and the Default Mode Network (DMN)
We believe our findings suggest a prominent role of the VAN in the bottom-up salience detection in early infancy and that the VAN and the SN may overlap in their roles of bottom-up control of attention

Summary

Introduction

In order to survive the changes and challenges of the external world we need the ability to focus on the multiple sources of stimuli that constantly compete for our attention, the so called “saliency detection”. The complex interaction of bottom-up and top-down attention mechanism requires the ability to disengage from the constant stream of our self-referential thoughts (the so called “mind wondering”), a cognitive process attributed to the DMN (Raichle 2015; RL, JR, and DL 2008). This postulate is supported by the evidence that performance of a goal-directed, non-self-referential task is accompanied by a decrease in activity in the DMN and a corresponding increase in activity in the DAN (JS et al 2011; Esposito et al 2018)

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