Attention Across Scales: From Individual Variation to Social Hierarchies and Brain Networks in Semi-Free-Ranging Macaques
Attention is a fundamental brain function supporting perception, decision-making, and social behavior, and its dysfunction profoundly impairs daily life. It is both dynamic and stable, varying across observations and individuals, changing across the lifespan, and being shaped by social and environmental experience. Yet capturing this complexity remains a central challenge in neuroscience. Here,…
Attention, a vital brain function, underpins perception, decision-making, and social behavior. Its functionality is both dynamic and stable, fluctuating among observations, individuals, and across the lifespan, while being influenced by social and environmental factors. However, understanding this complexity continues to pose a significant challenge in neuroscience.
This study examined this challenge by linking longitudinal behavioral observations of semi-free-ranging macaques in naturalistic social settings with resting-state fMRI. The researchers analyzed performance across days, ages, and social hierarchies and correlated it with intrinsic brain organization. Distinct attentional patterns were identified, including individuals exhibiting reduced attentional control.
The performance levels followed an inverted-U curve throughout the lifespan, peaking in adulthood before a decline. Social status also impacted attentional performance. Perhaps most importantly, the nonlinear lifespan trajectories and associations with individual attentional differences were most pronounced in frontoparietal connectivity.
Overall, these results offer a biological framework to comprehend the multifaceted nature of sustained attention, its individual variability, social influences, and neural underpinnings.
Written by urgent.news from bioRxiv's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
