Selective visual and auditory attention toward utterances - A PET study

The purpose of this study was to reveal functional areas of the brain modul ating processing of selective auditory or visual attention toward utterance s.:Regional cerebral blood flow was measured in six normal volunteers using positron emission tomography during two selective attention tasks and a co ntrol condition. The auditory task activated the auditory, inferior parieta l, prefrontal, and anterior cingulate cortices. The visual task activated t he visual association, inferior parietal, and prefrontal cortices. Both con ditions activated the same area in the superior temporal sulcus. During the visual task, deactivation was observed in the auditory cortex. These resul ts indicate that there exists a modality-dependent selective attention mech anism which activates or deactivates cortical areas in different ways. (C) 1999 Academic Press.