CHICAGO, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- A study posted on the website of the University of Chicago (UChicago) on Thursday examines brain scans to uncover how attention is sustained over time, and when it might fluctuate.
The study examines functional MRI scans of people who performed a computerized task multiple times in one day, watching a stream of images and pressing a button in response to some of them as well as those who performed the same task on different days.
It also examines brain scans of those who have been administered anesthesia, as well as 30 scans of a single individual over the course of 10 months. The participants' ages ranged from 18 to 56.
Prior research has found that every person has a unique pattern of functional brain connectivity, a sort of fingerprint that can predict their cognitive and attentional abilities.
The researchers tested whether those patterns could extend to predict how a person's attention changes from moment to moment, or day to day.
They found that patterns of functional brain connectivity reliably predicted when people were more and less focused on the computer task. These predictions were highly accurate when averaged across many scan sessions.
Meanwhile, the patterns predicted attentional state even when measured in short window of time, such as 30 seconds of an fMRI session.
The researchers hope further research can provide insights into how attention changes over longer periods of time, like development and aging.
The study has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
