Sustained attentional control is critical for everyday tasks and success in school and employment. Understanding gender differences in sustained attentional control, and their potential sources, is an important goal of psychology and neuroscience and of great relevance to society. We used a large web-based sample (n = 21,484, from testmybrain.org) to examine gender differences in sustained attentional control. Our sample included participants from 41 countries, allowing us to examine how gender differences in each country relate to national indices of gender equality. We found significant gender differences in certain aspects of sustained attentional control. Using indices of gender equality, we found that overall sustained attentional control performance was lower in countries with less equality and that there were greater gender differences in performance in countries with less equality. These findings suggest that creating sociocultural conditions which value women and men equally can improve a component of sustained attention and reduce gender disparities in cognition.

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Developing non-invasive brain stimulation interventions to improve attentional control is extremely relevant to a variety of neurologic and psychiatric populations, yet few studies have identified reliable biomarkers that can be readily modified to improve attentional control. One potential biomarker of attention is functional connectivity in the core cortical network supporting attention - the dorsal attention network (DAN). We used a network-targeted cerebellar transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) procedure, intended to enhance cortical functional connectivity in the DAN. Specifically, in healthy young adults we administered intermittent theta burst TMS (iTBS) to the midline cerebellar node of the DAN and, as a control, the right cerebellar node of the default mode network (DMN). These cerebellar targets were localized using individual resting-state fMRI scans. Participants completed assessments of both sustained (gradual onset continuous performance task, gradCPT) and transient attentional control (attentional blink) immediately before and after stimulation, in two sessions (cerebellar DAN and DMN). Following cerebellar DAN stimulation, participants had significantly fewer attentional lapses (lower commission error rates) on the gradCPT. In contrast, stimulation to the cerebellar DMN did not affect gradCPT performance. Further, in the DAN condition, individuals with worse baseline gradCPT performance showed the greatest enhancement in gradCPT performance. These results suggest that temporarily increasing functional connectivity in the DAN via network-targeted cerebellar stimulation can enhance sustained attention, particularly in those with poor baseline performance. With regard to transient attention, TMS stimulation improved attentional blink performance across both stimulation sites, suggesting increasing functional connectivity in both networks can enhance this aspect of attention. These findings have important implications for intervention applications of TMS and theoretical models of functional connectivity.

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