Journal of Biomedical Physics and Engineering

Current Issue

By Issue

By Author

By Subject

Author Index

Keyword Index

About Journal

Aims and Scope

Staff Members

Editorial Board

Publication Ethics

Indexing and Abstracting

Related Links

FAQ

Peer Review Process

News

Attentional Control during Visual Modified Flanker Stimuli using fMRI Data

Document Type : Original Research

Authors

1 Department of Biomedical Engineering, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, Iran

2 Department of Radiology, Firoozgar Hospital, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

3 Department of Radiology, School of Paramedicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

4 Department of Psychology, School of Medicine, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, Iran

5 Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Faculty of Paramedical, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences (KUMS), Kermanshah, Iran

10.31661/jbpe.v0i0.2408-1813

Abstract

Background: Selective attention is the ability to concentrate on specific sensory inputs while ignoring other stimuli and sensory inputs, and it is related to job performance, especially in military personnel.
Objective: This study aimed to evaluate selective attention in military personnel rather than normal individuals.
Material and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 40 individuals were divided into two groups: military personnel and normal individuals. Participants were shown a modified flanker task in a military environment, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to assess brain activation and functional connectivity through an attention task.
Results: Military personnel demonstrated quicker response times than civilians in both high- and low-threat environments, particularly in incongruent trials. In high-threat scenarios, the left Medial Frontal Gyrus (MFG) showed increased voxel counts, while the right MFG was more active in low-threat trials. Additionally, military personnel exhibited stronger functional connectivity in attention regions compared to civilians. 
Conclusion: Functional connectivity analysis reveals that military personnel show increased connectivity in attention regions during high-threat situations, indicating adaptive neural strategies for managing danger. The study also finds that congruent stimuli demand less neural coordination than incongruent ones, resulting in the understanding improvement of threat perception and attentional processes in military contexts, with significant implications for training and performance.

Highlights

Hamid Sharini (Google Scholar)

Maziar Jalalvandi (Google Scholar)

Keywords

References
  1. Desimone R, Duncan J. Neural mechanisms of selective visual attention. Annu Rev Neurosci. 1995;18:193-222. doi: 10.1146/annurev.ne.18.030195.001205. PubMed PMID: 7605061.
  2. Tillman CM, Wiens S. Behavioral and ERP indices of response conflict in Stroop and flanker tasks. Psychophysiology. 2011;48(10):1405-11. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8986.2011.01203.x. PubMed PMID: 21457276.
  3. Lehto JE, Juujärvi P, Kooistra L, Pulkkinen L. Dimensions of executive functioning: Evidence from children. Br J Dev Psychol. 2003;21(1):59-80. doi: 10.1348/026151003321164627.
  4. Miyake A, Friedman NP, Emerson MJ, Witzki AH, Howerter A, Wager TD. The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex “Frontal Lobe” tasks: a latent variable analysis. Cogn Psychol. 2000;41(1):49-100. doi: 10.1006/cogp.1999.0734. PubMed PMID: 10945922.
  5. Posner MI, DiGirolamo GJ. Executive Attention: Conflict, Target Detection, and Cognitive Control. In: R. Parasuraman(Ed.), The attentive brain. Cambridge, MA, US: The MIT Press; 1998. p. 401-23.
  6. Fassbender C, Foxe JJ, Garavan H. Mapping the functional anatomy of task preparation: priming task-appropriate brain networks. Hum Brain Mapp. 2006;27(10):819-27. doi: 10.1002/hbm.20223. PubMed PMID: 16541457. PubMed PMCID: PMC6871427.
  7. Carter CS, van Veen V. Anterior cingulate cortex and conflict detection: an update of theory and data. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2007;7(4):367-79. doi: 10.3758/cabn.7.4.367. PubMed PMID: 18189010.
  8. Ye Z, Zhou X. Conflict control during sentence comprehension: fMRI evidence. 2009;48(1):280-90. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.06.032. PubMed PMID: 19540923.
  9. Novick JM, Kan IP, Trueswell JC, Thompson-Schill SL. A case for conflict across multiple domains: memory and language impairments following damage to ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. Cogn Neuropsychol. 2009;26(6):527-67. doi: 10.1080/02643290903519367. PubMed PMID: 20183014. PubMed PMCID: PMC3791076.
  10. Sharini H, Zolghadriha S, Riyahi Alam N, Jalalvandi M, Khabiri H, Arabalibeik H, Nadimi M. Assessment of Motor Cortex in Active, Passive and Imagery Wrist Movement Using Functional MRI. J Biomed Phys Eng. 2021;11(4):515-26. doi: 10.31661/jbpe.v0i0.1034. PubMed PMID: 34458199. PubMed PMCID: PMC8385213.
  11. Jalalvandi M, Riahi Alam N, Sharini H. Optical Imaging of Brain Motor Cortex Activation During Wrist Movement Using Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS). Arch Neurosci. 2019;6(Brain Mapping):e90089. doi: 10.5812/ans.90089.
  12. Sharini H, Fooladi M, Masjoodi S, Jalalvandi M, Yousef Pour M. Identification of the pain process by cold stimulation: Using dynamic causal modeling of effective connectivity in functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). 2019;40(2):86-94. doi: 10.1016/j.irbm.2018.11.006.
  13. Cai X, Li X, Razmjooy N, Ghadimi N. Breast Cancer Diagnosis by Convolutional Neural Network and Advanced Thermal Exchange Optimization Algorithm. Comput Math Methods Med. 2021;2021:5595180. doi: 10.1155/2021/5595180. PubMed PMID: 34790252. PubMed PMCID: PMC8592754.
  14. Dedovic K, D’Aguiar C, Pruessner JC. What stress does to your brain: a review of neuroimaging studies. Can J Psychiatry. 2009;54(1):6-15. doi: 10.1177/070674370905400104. PubMed PMID: 19175975.
  15. Harrivel AR, Weissman DH, Noll DC, Peltier SJ. Monitoring attentional state with fNIRS. Front Hum Neurosci. 2013;7:861. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00861. PubMed PMID: 24379771. PubMed PMCID: PMC3861695.
  16. Braun DA, Nagengast AJ, Wolpert DM. Risk-sensitivity in sensorimotor control. Front Hum Neurosci. 2011;5:1. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2011.00001. PubMed PMID: 21283556. PubMed PMCID: PMC3028548.
  17. Onan A. Bidirectional convolutional recurrent neural network architecture with group-wise enhancement mechanism for text sentiment classification. J King Saud Univ - Comput Inf Sci. 2022;34(5):2098-117. doi: 10.1016/j.jksuci.2022.02.025.
  18. Roberts RE, Anderson EJ, Husain M. Expert cognitive control and individual differences associated with frontal and parietal white matter microstructure. J Neurosci. 2010;30(50):17063-7. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4879-10.2010. PubMed PMID: 21159976. PubMed PMCID: PMC3115511.
  19. Dedovic K, D’Aguiar C, Pruessner JC, Van Stegeren AH. What stress does to your brain: A review of neuroimaging studies: Imaging stress effects on memory: A review of neuroimaging studies. Can J Psychiatry. 2008;53(12):A1-2. doi: 10.1177/070674370805301201.
  20. Jalalvandi M, ZahediNiya M, Kargar J, Karimi SA, Sharini H, Goodarzi N. Brain Functional Mechanisms in Attentional Processing Following Modified Conflict Stroop Task. J Biomed Phys Eng. 2020;10(4):493-506. doi: 10.31661/jbpe.v0i0.2003-1084. PubMed PMID: 32802797. PubMed PMCID: PMC7416090.
  21. Onan A. Consensus clustering‐based undersampling approach to imbalanced learning. Scientific Programming. 2019;2019(1):5901087. doi: 10.1155/2019/5901087.
  22. Yu M, Liu Y. Differences in executive function of the attention network between athletes from interceptive and strategic sports. J Mot Behav. 2021;53(4):419-30. doi: 10.1080/00222895.2020.1790486. PubMed PMID: 32654658.
  23. MacDonald AW 3rd, Cohen JD, Stenger VA, Carter CS. Dissociating the role of the dorsolateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortex in cognitive control. Science. 2000;288(5472):1835-8. doi: 10.1126/science.288.5472.1835. PubMed PMID: 10846167.
  24. Coulthard EJ, Nachev P, Husain M. Control over conflict during movement preparation: role of posterior parietal cortex. 2008;58(1):144-57. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2008.02.009. PubMed PMID: 18400170. PubMed PMCID: PMC2292819.
  25. Derrfuss J, Brass M, Neumann J, Von Cramon DY. Involvement of the inferior frontal junction in cognitive control: meta-analyses of switching and Stroop studies. Hum Brain Mapp. 2005;25(1):22-34. doi: 10.1002/hbm.20127. PubMed PMID: 15846824. PubMed PMCID: PMC6871679.
  26. Carter CS, Macdonald AM, Stenger VA, Cohen JD. 11. Dissociating the contributions of DLPFC and anterior cingulate to executive control: an event-related fMRI study. Brain Cogn. 2001;47(1-2):66-9.
  27. Yousef Pour M, Masjoodi S, Fooladi M, Jalalvandi M, Vosoughi R, Vejdani Afkham B, Khabiri H. Identification of the Cognitive Interference Effect Related to Stroop Stimulation: Using Dynamic Causal Modeling of Effective Connectivity in Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS). J Biomed Phys Eng. 2020;10(4):467-78. doi: 10.31661/jbpe.v0i0.1174. PubMed PMID: 32802795. PubMed PMCID: PMC7416094.
  28. Brass M, Ruge H, Meiran N, Rubin O, Koch I, Zysset S, et al. When the same response has different meanings: recoding the response meaning in the lateral prefrontal cortex. Neuroimage. 2003;20(2):1026-31. doi: 10.1016/S1053-8119(03)00357-4. PubMed PMID: 14568472.
  29. Coderre EL, Smith JF, Van Heuven WJ, Horwitz B. The Functional Overlap of Executive Control and Language Processing in Bilinguals. Biling (Camb Engl). 2016;19(3):471-88. doi: 10.1017/S1366728915000188. PubMed PMID: 27695385. PubMed PMCID: PMC5042330.
  30. Mackworth JF. Vigilance, arousal, and habituation. Psychol Rev. 1968;75(4):308-22. doi: 10.1037/h0025896. PubMed PMID: 4875885.
Journal of Biomedical Physics and Engineering
Volume 16, Issue 4 - Serial Number 1
August 2026
Pages 315-332
Files
Share
How to cite
Statistics