Selective Tuning of the Blood Oxygenation Level-Dependent Response during Simple Target Detection Dissociates Human Frontoparietal Subregions

Abstract

Current models of working memory and focal attention converge on the idea of an adaptable global system, distributed across a network of frontal and parietal brain regions. Here, we examine how the human frontoparietal network selectively adapts to represent currently relevant information during a simple attentional task: monitoring for a target item in a series of nontargets. Across the entire frontoparietal network, there is selective response to targets, in line with a global system for coding task-relevant inputs. At the same time, there are striking dissociations in response to nontargets; whereas ventrolateral frontal cortex responds just to the target, more dorsal/anterior regions respond to all stimuli from the target category. The results show different degrees of target selectivity across different regions of the frontoparietal network.