Event Abstract Back to Event Sustained attention and the use of alerting tones after traumatic brain injury: An fMRI study B. Levine1, 2, 3, C. O'Connor1, 2, N. M. Richard1, 2* and I. H. Robertson4 1 Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest, Canada 2 University of Toronto, Department of Psychology, Canada 3 University of Toronto, Department of Medicine (Neurology), Canada 4 Institute of Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, Ireland Sustained attention requires executive control to maintain task goals over time. It is often impaired after traumatic brain injury (TBI). In such cases, alerting tones that exogenously stimulate attention have been shown to improve task performance. The neural bases for this effect, or for recovery of sustained attention after TBI, are unclear. Using fMRI we examined how alerting tones interact with the endogenous right-lateralized sustained attention system in adults with chronic-phase moderate-to-severe TBI compared to a matched sample of neurologically healthy controls. Behaviourally, these TBI patients performed the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) as well as controls, with comparable performance in SART blocks with and without random alerting tones. However, whereas alerting tones attenuated prefrontal activation in the controls, suggesting a shift to exogenously-maintained attention, in the TBI patient these tones increased activation in right frontal-parietal sustained attention regions. Exogenous stimulation in the form of alerting tones thus appeared to stimulate engagement of the sustained attention network in these patients. These findings suggest a neural mechanism for the behavioural benefits of alerting in prior studies of patients impaired in sustained attention, and support the potential use of alerting tones for the neurorehabilitation of sustained attention after TBI. Conference: The 20th Annual Rotman Research Institute Conference, The frontal lobes, Toronto, Canada, 22 Mar - 26 Mar, 2010. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Neurorehabilitation Citation: Levine B, O'Connor C, Richard NM and Robertson IH (2010). Sustained attention and the use of alerting tones after traumatic brain injury: An fMRI study. Conference Abstract: The 20th Annual Rotman Research Institute Conference, The frontal lobes. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.14.00136 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 30 Jun 2010; Published Online: 30 Jun 2010. * Correspondence: N. M Richard, Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest, Toronto, Canada, nadine@psych.utoronto.ca Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers B. Levine C. O'Connor N. M Richard I. H Robertson Google B. Levine C. O'Connor N. M Richard I. H Robertson Google Scholar B. Levine C. O'Connor N. M Richard I. H Robertson PubMed B. Levine C. O'Connor N. M Richard I. H Robertson Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.