Lost in Time: Temporal Monitoring Elicits Clinical Decrements in Sustained Attention Post-Stroke

Abstract Objectives: Mental fatigue, ‘brain fog’, and difficulties maintaining engagement are commonly reported issues in a range of neurological and psychiatric conditions. Traditional sustained attention tasks commonly measure this capacity as the ability to detect target stimuli based on sensory features in the auditory or visual domains. However, with this approach, discrete target stimuli may exogenously capture attention to aid detection, thereby masking deficits in the ability to endogenously sustain attention over time. Methods: To address this, we developed the Continuous Temporal Expectancy Task (CTET) where individuals continuously monitor a stream of patterned stimuli alternating at a fixed temporal interval (690 ms) and detect an infrequently occurring target stimulus defined by a prolonged temporal duration (1020 ms or longer). As such, sensory properties of target and non-target stimuli are perceptually identical and differ only in temporal duration. Using the CTET, we assessed stroke survivors with unilateral right hemisphere damage (N = 14), a cohort in which sustained attention deficits have been extensively reported. Results: Stroke survivors had overall lower target detection accuracy compared with neurologically healthy age-matched older controls (N = 18). Critically, stroke survivors performance was characterised by significantly steeper within-block performance decrements, which occurred within short temporal windows (˜3 ½ min), and were restored by the break periods between blocks. Conclusions: These findings suggest that continuous temporal monitoring taxes sustained attention processes to capture clinical deficits in this capacity over time, and outline a precise measure of the endogenous processes hypothesised to underpin sustained attention deficits following right hemisphere stroke.

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Lost in time: temporal monitoring elicits clinical decrements in sustained attention post-stroke

10.1101/2020.11.30.20239921 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

MB Brosnan ◽

PM Dockree ◽

S Harty ◽

DJ Pearce ◽

JM Levenstein ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Target Detection ◽

Sustained Attention ◽

Right Hemisphere ◽

Sudden Onset ◽

Detection Accuracy ◽

Stroke Survivors ◽

Temporal Duration ◽

Wide Range ◽

Over Time ◽

Right Hemisphere Stroke

AbstractMental fatigue, ‘brain fog’ and difficulties maintaining engagement are commonly reported issues in a wide range of neurological and psychiatric conditions. These compromise the ability to effectively engage with rehabilitative intervention and limit plasticity processes necessary for optimal recovery.Traditional sustained attention tasks commonly measure this capacity as the ability to detect target stimuli based on sensory features in the auditory and visual domains. However, with this approach, discrete sudden onset target stimuli may exogenously capture attention and/or result in automatic stimulus-response mappings to aid target detection, thereby masking deficits in the ability to endogenously sustain attention over time. We have developed a sustained attention test (the continuous temporal expectancy test; CTET) which requires individuals to continuously monitor a stream of patterned stimuli alternating at a fixed temporal interval (690ms) and detect an infrequently occurring target stimulus defined by a prolonged temporal duration (1020ms or longer). Because sensory properties of target and non-target stimuli are perceptually identical and differ only in temporal duration, the CTET taxes continuous monitoring processes which are critical for sustaining attention.Here, using the CTET we assessed stroke survivors with unilateral right hemisphere damage (N=14), a cohort in which sustained attention deficits have been extensively reported. The right hemisphere stroke survivors had overall lower target detection accuracy on the CTET compared to neurologically-healthy age-matched older controls (N=18). In addition, performance of the stroke survivors was characterised by significantly steeper within-block performance decrements in target detection accuracy compared with controls. These decrements occurred within short temporal windows (∼3 ½ minutes) and were restored by the break periods between blocks.These findings outline a precise measure of the endogenous processes hypothesized to underpin deficits of sustained attention following right hemisphere stroke and suggest that continuous temporal monitoring may be a particularly sensitive way to capture clinical deficits in the capacity to sustain attention over time.

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Sustained Attention and the Effects of Distraction in Underachieving Second Grade Children

Journal of Education ◽

10.1177/002205747415600403 ◽

1974 ◽

Vol 156 (4) ◽

pp. 4-17 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Nancy L. Ricks ◽

Allen F. Mirsky

Keyword(s):

Visual Field ◽

Sustained Attention ◽

Major Effect ◽

Attention Deficits ◽

Learning Problems ◽

Second Grade ◽

Academic Underachievement ◽

Intelligence Scale ◽

The Relationship ◽

Over Time

The relationship between attention deficits and learning problems was studied in thirty-three second grade children. Impairment in sustained attention, the effects of auditory distractors upon sustained attention, the deployment of attention in a visual field (field articulation), and the management of information over time (Leveling-Sharpening) were investigated in underachieving children. Underachievers were significantly lower than controls in Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children Verbal and Full Scale I.Q.'s but not in Performance I.Q. Underachievers were significantly poorer in their performance on a more difficult measure of sustained attention. Only the letters spoken distractor produced a significant effect on the performance of underachievers on an easier measure of sustained attention. The major effect of distraction in both groups was to decrease attention to critical stimuli rather than to significantly increase responses to distracting stimuli. Underachievers also had more difficulty in withholding attention from irrelevant stimuli on a measure of field articulation, but stimuli more central to the task had an apparently greater effect on their performance than peripheral stimuli. Underachievers did not differ from controls with respect to Leveling-Sharpening. Significant correlations were found between underachievers’ performance on measures of sustained attention and measures of field articulation. The findings suggest that impairment in sustained attention is associated with difficulty in learning in second grade children and that such impairment can be identified at an earlier age, and in children with less marked academic underachievement, than is commonly believed.

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Right-Hemisphere Specialization for Contour Grouping

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169/a000252 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 61 (5) ◽

pp. 331-339 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Gregor Volberg

Keyword(s):

Right Hemisphere ◽

Contour Detection ◽

Global Processing ◽

Detection Accuracy ◽

Frequency Spectra ◽

Visual Hemifield ◽

Spatial Frequencies ◽

A Chain ◽

The Right ◽

Hemisphere Specialization

Previous studies often revealed a right-hemisphere specialization for processing the global level of compound visual stimuli. Here we explore whether a similar specialization exists for the detection of intersected contours defined by a chain of local elements. Subjects were presented with arrays of randomly oriented Gabor patches that could contain a global path of collinearly arranged elements in the left or in the right visual hemifield. As expected, the detection accuracy was higher for contours presented to the left visual field/right hemisphere. This difference was absent in two control conditions where the smoothness of the contour was decreased. The results demonstrate that the contour detection, often considered to be driven by lateral coactivation in primary visual cortex, relies on higher-level visual representations that differ between the hemispheres. Furthermore, because contour and non-contour stimuli had the same spatial frequency spectra, the results challenge the view that the right-hemisphere advantage in global processing depends on a specialization for processing low spatial frequencies.

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Sustained attention deficits in adults with juvenile-onset type 1 diabetes mellitus

Psychosomatic Medicine ◽

10.1097/psy.0000000000000992 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol Publish Ahead of Print ◽

Author(s):

Wenjing Zou ◽

Jing He ◽

Yuzhuo Liu ◽

Jiang Zhu ◽

Fang Liu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Diabetes Mellitus ◽

Type 1 Diabetes ◽

Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus ◽

Sustained Attention ◽

Attention Deficits ◽

Juvenile Onset ◽

Onset Type

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If You’re Happy and You Know it Stay Alert: The Effects of Lighting on Vigilance Performance and Affective State

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting ◽

10.1177/1071181321651314 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 65 (1) ◽

pp. 854-858

Author(s):

Lauren E. Monroe ◽

Samantha L. Smith

Keyword(s):

Affective State ◽

Light Condition ◽

Bright Light ◽

Extended Period ◽

Light Therapy ◽

Speed Of Information Processing ◽

Attention Tasks ◽

High Workload ◽

Dim Light ◽

Over Time

Vigilance, or sustained attention tasks involve detecting critical signals, embedded amid more frequent neutral signals, over an extended period of time. A decline in performance, engagement, and arousal over time, as well as high workload and stress, are common outcomes of such tasks. Exposure to broad-spectrum or short wavelength bright light has been found to positively impact alertness, speed of information processing, and mood, but has not been extensively explored in the vigilance domain. The present study explored whether a light therapy lamp could mitigate the negative vigilance outcomes found in both performance and affective state. Results indicated that the therapy light did not prevent a decline in detection of critical signals over time, nor significantly impact workload, sleepiness, or subjective stress state compared to a dim light condition. However, mood questionnaire results suggest that lighting may impact separate constructs of arousal and tiredness, warranting further research.

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Dissociated functional connectivity profiles for motor and attention deficits in acute right-hemisphere stroke

Brain ◽

10.1093/brain/aww107 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 139 (7) ◽

pp. 2024-2038 ◽

Cited By ~ 39

Author(s):

Antonello Baldassarre ◽

Lenny Ramsey ◽

Jennifer Rengachary ◽

Kristi Zinn ◽

Joshua S. Siegel ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Functional Connectivity ◽

Right Hemisphere ◽

Attention Deficits ◽

Right Hemisphere Stroke

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No Sustained Attention Differences in a Longitudinal Randomized Trial Comparing Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction versus Active Control

10.31231/osf.io/cfgnd ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Donal G. MacCoon ◽

Katherine A. MacLean ◽

Richard J Davidson ◽

Clifford Saron ◽

Antoine Lutz

Keyword(s):

Active Control ◽

Sustained Attention ◽

Stress Reduction ◽

Visual Discrimination ◽

Longitudinal Design ◽

Mindfulness Practice ◽

Clinical Population ◽

Future Research ◽

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction ◽

Over Time

Background: Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is a secular form of meditation training. The vast majority of the extant literature investigating the health effects of mindfulness interventions relies on wait-list control comparisons. Previous studies have found that meditation training over several months is associated with improvements in cognitive control and attention.Methodology/Principal Findings: We used a visual continuous performance task (CPT) to test the effects of eight weeks of mindfulness training on sustained attention by comparing MBSR to the Health Enhancement Program (HEP), a structurally equivalent, active control condition in a randomized, longitudinal design (ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01301105) focusing on a non-clinical population typical of MBSR participants. Researchers were blind to group assignment. 63 community participants were randomized to either MBSR (n = 31) or HEP (n = 32). CPT analyses were conducted on 29 MBSR participants and 25 HEP participants. We predicted that MBSR would improve visual discrimination ability and sustained attention over time on the CPT compared to HEP, with more home practice associated with greater improvements. Our hypotheses were not confirmed but we did find some evidence for improved visual discrimination similar to effects in partial replication of other research. Our study had sufficient power to demonstrate that intervention groups do not differ in their improvement over time in sustained attention performance. One of our primary predictions concerning the effects of intervention on attentional fatigue was significant but not interpretable.Conclusions: Attentional sensitivity is not affected by mindfulness practice as taught in MBSR, but it is unclear whether mindfulness might positively affect another aspect of attention, vigilance. These results also highlight the relevant procedural modifications required by future research to correctly investigate the role of sustained attention in similar samples.

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LACK OF EMPHASIS ON PSYCHOLOGICAL REHABILITATION FOR STROKE PATIENTS

Pakistan Journal of Rehabilitation ◽

10.36283/pjr.zu.1.1/009 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 2

Author(s):

Samina Masood Haider

Keyword(s):

Emotional Difficulties ◽

Stroke Survivors ◽

Stroke Patients ◽

Post Stroke ◽

Post Stroke Depression ◽

The Many ◽

Over Time

It has been observed that most of the patients are not aware of the dilapidating affects of post stroke depression on their recovery, survival and a return to normal activities of life. The lack of emphasis on psychological rehabilitation for stroke patients is a source of concern for me and I would like to bring to your attention about the facts regarding the implications of proper psychological rehabilitation is not undertaken. Stroke survivors report a range of emotional difficulties, most common being fear, anxiety, frustration, anger, sadness and a sense of grief for their physical and mental losses. Usually these feelings may fade over time however, some patients may struggle with adjusting to the many changes following stroke. When this happens these feelings can develop into depression. It is estimated that approximately one-third of stroke1 survivors develop post-stroke depression (PSD)

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