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Postgraduate research: Attention, Control and Awareness

A number of key areas are represented in this research, including:

1. Frontal lobe function and cognitive control, including neuroimaging and patient studies of attention, problem solving, learning and intelligence.

2. Attentional competition and focus, including studies of selective, divided and sustained attention in visual and auditory modalities.

3. Processes of visual and verbal working memory, and their basis in frontal and parietal lobe functions.

4. Clinical applications, including: awareness in anaesthesia, vegetative state and other disorders of consciousness; spatial neglect and other attentional disorders; executive disorders; cognitive rehabilitation after brain damage.

Individual areas of research:

Rhodri Cusack

It is a good general rule that the processes our brains perform best are those we are least aware of. For example, while it is easy for us to recite the rules of mental arithmetic, we are very poor at it, even when compared to the simplest of calculators. In contrast, the way we organise the vast jumbles of information arriving from our senses into coherent objects, or the subsequent selection of relevant ones, seem trivial to us, but these are extremely hard, complex problems. Cognitive neuroscience provides an excellent tool for identifying how these tasks are performed by the brain: a combination of neuroimaging, neuropsychology and electrophysiology can reveal the underlying representations and processes. I work primarily using functional MRI and neuropsychology to study the structuring of information (spanning perception, attention, memory & cognition) and would welcome candidates for PhDs in this or related areas. Perhaps our work will help us understand even those processes humans perform best! Additionally, as a new tool, MRI is constantly developing, and I would also welcome applications from those with a mathematics, physics or engineering background wanting to work to develop new methods for medical imaging.

John Duncan

The study of attention and control is especially well suited to the interdisciplinary approach of modern cognitive neuroscience. We use methods of experimental cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, functional brain imaging and electrophysiology to investigate attentional functions of the frontal and parietal cortex, and their role in cognitive problems from visual and auditory stimulus recognition to new task learning and intelligence. Key theoretical constructs include competition for representation in multiple brain systems, top-down bias by relevance to current behavioural concerns, and sequential control of complex mental programs.

Tom Manly

Brain injury often results in difficulties in attention, awareness and executive functions. These can range from striking deficits in noticing information from one side of space (unilateral spatial neglect) through to 'executive' problems in maintaining goal directed behaviour, planning, and inhibition . The sometimes very selective damage to such capacities has raised questions about how these complex functions develop, are manifested in the healthy brain, and how they may act to influence the function of more basic perceptual and output systems. The CBU has a long history of innovations in these areas (from the early work of Broadbent, Macworth etc on attention and vigilance through to the work of, for example, Alan Baddeley, Tim Shallice, Paul Burgess, Tony Marcel and John Duncan on executive functions and awareness). The Unit now has a thriving cross-disciplinary programme, including the use of fMRI and (from November) MEG functional imaging, as well as work with patients and healthy volunteers, directed at understanding these higher level capacities. One of the main aims of our part of the programme lies in applying these developments to neuropsychological rehabilitation and, in turn, using the result from our work with patients to further illuminate/constrain models of normal function. Given that attention and executive abilities may have a particular role in facilitating adaptive recovery, developments in clinical applications in this area hold great potential to improve outcomes for patients. In this work we enjoy have excellent links with the Oliver Zangwill Centre (a leading international unit for rehabilitation after brain injury based in Ely) and with stroke and other neurological services at Addenbrooke's Hospital. Cambridge is also ideally placed for increased liaison with developmental and adult psychiatry services for specific projects. In addition, the Unit has excellent facilities and methods support for functional imaging studies and access to a large group of healthy volunteers. Although the broad themes of the programme relate to how attention/executive functions are best assessed and facilitated through targeted intervention (and indeed their role in recovery and outcome more generally) - the details and methods used in studies varies considerably. In this respect we welcome innovative proposals that could range from work with clinical groups through to functional imaging/behavioural work with healthy volunteers. Typically, PhD projects would combine aspects of each - which is often of benefit in providing the broadest possible experience to students. As an illustration, the following topics have been addressed in recent PhD projects:

  1. Spatial function and alertness: Work with patients showing unilateral neglect has suggested that the debilitating spatial biases may be significantly reduced by increased alertness. In attempting to understand this effect (and as a basis for a more general model for the impact of frontal function on recovery), two substantial projects have considered whether children with low levels of alertness may experience a form of developmental unilateral neglect and whether modulations of alertness in the healthy population show similar patterns. These projects have included studies with healthy adults and children, children with the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, sleep deprivation studies and pharmacological interventions.
  2. Variability in executive deficits: Many neuropsychological deficits are neither absolute or entirely stable (the residual abilities of patients vary from one time to another). An important aim in rehabilitation research - and in understanding basic function - is to look at factors that are reliably associated with improved levels of performance. A series of studies have examined the effect of content free cueing (automated reminders for patients to engage in 'executive reviews') from simple laboratory paradigms through complex multiple-demand tests, to real-life activities. The positive effects, as well as having a potentially direct therapeutic benefit, are valuable in understanding the level at which these common deficits may be operating.

Work with patient groups can be challenging and it would be expected that successful candidates have skills in working with people who may be unwell, distressed or disinhibited and in developing relationships with clinical and other services.

Adrian Owen

My research combines functional neuroimaging (fMRI, PET, MEG) with neuropsychological studies in brain-injured patients. Specific areas of interest include localisation of function ('brain mapping') within the human frontostriatal system, cognitive deficits in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and detecting residual cognitive function in the vegetative state and in related disorders of consciousness. For example, our recent work on the human frontal lobe has identified an area within the mid-ventrolateral frontal cortex that 'tunes' the attentional field to represent only the currently relevant task information. Our recent fMRI studies of patients with PD have demonstrated that the COMT val158met genotype influences frontoparietal activity during planning and attention. In addition, we have recently shown, for the first time, that fMRI can reveal conscious awareness in patients who are diagnosed as vegetative, when existing clinical methods have been unable to provide that information.

Specific projects include:

  1. Functional neuroimaging studies of working memory and other executive processes in healthy control volunteers.
  2. Cognitive deficits in Parkinson's disease examined using fMRI.
  3. Executive control of attentional processes. Behavioural studies and fMRI.
  4. Investigating residual cognitive function in vegetative state and other disorders of consciousness using neuroimaging.

James Rowe

Characterisation and optimisation of prefrontal cortical functions in health and disease.

Why do you think, act and speak in the way you do? You may have some particular rewards in mind: money, leisure time, winning etc. There may be 'rules' or constraints on your behaviour because of where you are or who you are with. Genetics and personality traits may also influence your responses to these rules and rewards. Based on these factors, your response can still be very variable. It may be to recall some memory to mind, to choose to speak or move in a particular way, or to engage in a specific mental process considering what you see and hear or remember. The functions of the prefrontal cortex remain controversial yet it is critical to the interactions between such rewards, rules and behaviours. I believe that the functions of the prefrontal cortex can best be understood in terms of its interactions with other brain regions, including those regions that affect our sensory perceptions, and those regions that effect our responses like speech and movement. To understand these interactions, one can use special methods to measure 'effective connectivity' and 'functional connectivity' in brain networks. These methods are largely based on neuroimaging techniques like fMRI and MEG (in our group) or PET and TMS. We have shown recently for example that following damage to the frontal lobes, the surviving brain regions may be as active as normal during particular tasks (measured by fMRI) but that their activity is no longer well coordinated in a regulated network (poor inter-regional connectivity).

We have been using these methods to understand how rewards affect our choice of behaviours; how we choose a particular set of rules or actions; and how we choose between alternative actions when there are no obvious differences in the outcomes. These processes are of interest to understand normal human behaviour, but they are directly relevant to understanding the difficulties faced by patients with neurodegenerative diseases (Frontal lobe dementias, Parkinson's disease and PSP) or with structural lesions (tumours/stroke) and to develop rational treatments for these illnesses. Specific projects would be considered in relation to your specific interests and skills, and other ongoing projects in the group.

Natasha Sigala

A quarter of our brain is involved in the sense of vision, which allows us to perceive the world around us and recognize familiar objects, scenes and locations and dealing with new, unfamiliar ones based on their similarity to things we know. Recognition and categorization are very similar processes, and both ask the question "what is this object?" To recognize an object as a car, a face, or an apple is equivalent to assigning it in the car, face, or apple category. In both cases, the problem is to match incoming information with information in memory, which contains stored representations. Simple observation of the categorizations we make every day shows that the same object may belong to a number of categories, depending on the context, our experience with it, or the purpose of the categorization. For example, an object may be categorized as a car, a sports car, or a Ferrari 360 Spider in less than a second. In each of these cases selective attentional mechanisms emphasize different sets of features that support the labelling of the object in more general or more specific ways, while different brain mechanisms ensure that the most relevant set of features is highlighted at the appropriate time. We are particularly interested in the temporal and frontal cortex, and the way these brain areas change their representations of the world with experience and changing context. We use psychophysical, electrophysiological, and imaging techniques to ask questions about how neuronal populations support object representation and multiple task demands, such as attention, memory and categorization.