Temporal orienting deficit after prefrontal damage

Abstract

The aim of this study was to explore, for the first time in patients, the neural bases of temporal orienting of attention as well as the interrelations with two other effects of temporal preparation: the foreperiod effect and sequential effects. We administered an experimental task to a group of 14 patients with prefrontal lesion, a group of 15 control subjects and a group of 7 patients with a basal ganglia lesion. In the task, a cue was presented (a short versus long line) to inform participants about the time of appearance (early versus late) of a target stimulus, and the duration of the cue-target time intervals (400 versus 1400 ms) was manipulated. In contrast to the control group, patients with right prefrontal lesion showed a clear deficit in the temporal orienting effect. The foreperiod effect was also affected in the group of patients with prefrontal lesion (without lateralization of the deficit), whereas sequential effects were preserved. The group of basal ganglia patients did not show deficits in any of the effects. These findings support the voluntary and strategic nature of the temporal orienting and foreperiod effects, which depend on the prefrontal cortex, as well as the more automatic nature of sequential effects, which do not depend on either prefrontal cortex or frontobasal circuits.

Neural dissociation of automatic and controlled temporal preparation by transcranial magnetic stimulation

“…Interestingly, the TMS enhancement was functionally specific, as it involved temporal orienting only, but not preparation guided by rhythms. The interpretation in terms of TMS enhancement therefore emphasises the relevance of the DLPFC (and probably other areas functionally connected to it) for the temporal orienting function, and it allows reconciling the current work with previous research on the neuropsychological basis of temporal orienting (Triviño et al, 2011(Triviño et al, , 2010.…”

Tracing the bilingual advantage in cognitive control: The role of flexibility in temporal preparation and category switching

“…The sequential effects, on the other hand, were not affected by the dual task, which hints at their automatic nature. It seems, therefore, that sequential effects involve more automatic mechanisms, as opposed to the more controlled mechanisms involved in temporal orienting effects (Capizzi et al, 2012;Triviñ o et al, 2010;.…”

“…Since in a typical ANT task the cueÁtarget interval is fixed, the observed larger alerting effect in bilinguals (indexed by faster reactions in the alert cue condition) may reflect, in fact, an increased efficiency of temporal preparation or temporal orienting (Marzecová et al, 2012). Temporal orienting is defined as the capacity to voluntarily and strategically direct attention to a certain point in time when an event is expected (Correa, 2010;Correa, Lupiá ñ ez, Milliken, & Tudela, 2004;Coull & Nobre, 1998), and is assumed to be controlled by prefrontal brain regions that subserve executive control (Triviñ o, Arnedo, Lupiá ñ ez, Chirivella, & Correa, 2011;Triviñ o, Correa, Arnedo, & Lupiá ñ ez, 2010).…”

Memory, autonoetic consciousness, and the self

“…The relationship between time and memory and awareness has been emphasized since long and from very different perspectives. Time awareness (Brown, 1990), time orienting (Trivino, Correa, Arnedo, & Lupianez, 2010) and a proper handling of time epochs (Pribram & Tubbs, 1967) and temporal order (St. Jacques, Rubin, LaBar, & Cabeza, 2008) are related especially to the prefrontal cortex, while the proper perception of time and time epochs seems to engage the parietal cortex (Hoff & Pötzl, 1938;Pötzl, 1939Pötzl, , 1942Pötzl, , 1951Pötzl, , 1958 as well as the diencephalic structures as mentioned before (but see also Häfner, 1954). Damage to these areas may disturb the sense of time (including the the ability to successively link events in time) considerably with the consequence that the affected patients also become unable to encode or store new EAMs successfully.…”