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Review
. 2023 May:180:108574.
doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2023.108574. Epub 2023 May 4.

Fifty years integrating neurobiology and psychology to study attention

Michael I Posner  1 , Mary K Rothbart  2
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Free article
Review

Fifty years integrating neurobiology and psychology to study attention

Michael I Posner et al. Biol Psychol. 2023 May.
Free article

Abstract

At the time of the start of Biological Psychology cognitive studies had developed approaches to measuring cognitive processes. However, linking these to the underlying biology in the typical human brain had hardly begun. A critical step came in 1988 when methods for imaging the human brain in cognitive tasks began. By 1990 it was possible to describe three brain networks that carried out the hypothesized cognitive functions outlined 20 years before. Their development was traced in infancy, first using age-appropriate tasks and later through resting state imaging. Imaging was applied to both voluntary and involuntary cued shifts of visual orienting in humans and primates, and a summary was presented in 2002. By 2008 these new imaging findings were used to test hypotheses about the genes involved in each network. Recently, studies of mice using optogenetics to control populations of neurons have brought us closer to a synthesis of how attention and memory networks operate together in human learning. Perhaps the coming years will bring us to an integrated theory of aspects of attention using data from all the levels that can illuminate these issues, thus fulfilling a key goal of the Journal.

Keywords: Alerting; Attention Network Test; Executive attention; Neural network; Orienting; Resting state MRI; Self regulation; Temperament; Theta stimulation; Training attention.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors report no conflict of interest in this paper. Drs. Posner and Rothbart worked together to conceive and execute all aspects of this paper.

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