Table 1.
Meta-analysis of studies assessing sustained attention. The studies included in this meta-analysis, employed tasks assessing vigilance/sustained attention, in any sensory modality, at a single location only in healthy control subjects. Only right hemisphere fronto-parietal activations are shown in this table and plotted in MRICro (Fig. 2).
| Study | Task used | Modality of imaging | No of subjects | Regions activated | Talairach Coordinates (x, y, z) | Z/t score of activationa |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pardo et al. (1991) | Visual and somatosensory vigilance tasks | PET | 23 | Parietal lobe | 29, −51, 34 | >2.1 |
| 35, −35, 48 | >2.1 | |||||
| 39, −27, 46 | >2.1 | |||||
| 49, −25, 46 | >2.1 | |||||
| Frontal lobe | 45, 21, 34 | >2.1 | ||||
| 31, 17, 44 | >2.1 | |||||
| Johannsen et al. (1997) | Visual and vibration vigilance tasks | PET | 17 | IFG | 44, 20, −8 | 3.1 |
| MFG | 40, 34, 23 | 2.9 | ||||
| IPL | 43, −61, 44 | 3.5 | ||||
| Paus et al. (1997) | Auditory CPT | PET | 8 | VLPFC | 36, 27, 12 | 3.6 |
| 36, 22, −11 | 4.9 | |||||
| 38, 20, −5 | 3.7 | |||||
| ILP | 59, −37, 35 | 3.4 | ||||
| Coull and Frith (1998)b | Visual CPT variant | PET | 4 | IFG | 36, 20, 10 | 4.59 |
| IPS | 36, −56, 44 | 4.72 | ||||
| Coull et al. (1998) | Visual vigilance task | PET | 6 | IPL | 48, −52, 36 | 4.42 |
| DLPFC | 36, 10, 40 | 5.22 | ||||
| Hager et al. (1998) | Visual CPT | fMRI | 12 | DLPFC | 30, 43, 44 | 5.44 |
| 41, 38, 41 | 4.05 | |||||
| 37, 27, 33 | 2.71 | |||||
| Sturm et al. (1999) | Visual vigilance task | PET | 15 | MFG | 36, 36, 32 | 4.74 |
| 30, 46, 4 | 4.73 | |||||
| IPL | 54, −52, 24 | 4.29 | ||||
| Adler et al. (2001) | Visual CPT | fMRI | 14 | DLPFC | 38, 43, 15.5 | |
| Anterior insula | 34, 15, 11.5 | |||||
| IPL | 38, −49, 39.5 | |||||
| Vandenberghe et al. (2001) | Visual vigilance task | fMRI | 12 | Angular gyrus | 54, −60, 33 | 6.44 |
| 57, −51, 30 | 6.15 | |||||
| 60, −45, 42 | 5.26 | |||||
| PMC | 48, 12, 42 | 5.75 | ||||
| MFG | 39, 48, 21 | 5.27 | ||||
| Anterior insula | 51, 33, 21 | 5.24 | ||||
| 39, 30, −9 | 4.94 | |||||
| Foucher et al. (2004) | Visual vigilance task | fMRI | 7 | IFS | 47.5, 41.1, 7.2 | 7.51 |
| 39.6, 46, −10.7 | 4.95 | |||||
| IPL | 53.5, −40.1, 51.8 | 6.39 | ||||
| SPL | 33.7, −68.8, 49.5 | 6.36 | ||||
| Sturm et al. (2004) | Auditory vigilance task | PET | 10 | IFG | 32, 26, −15 | 4.81 |
| 40, 23, 3 | 4.63 | |||||
| IPL | 51, −49, 36 | 3.7 |
CPT, continuous performance task; IFG, inferior frontal gyrus; MFG, middle frontal gyrus; IPL, inferior parietal lobe; VLPFC, ventroleteral prefrontal cortex; DLPFC, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; PMC, premotor cortex; IFS, inferior frontal sulcus.
Z/t scores given where available.
This study employed the same stimuli but different instructions in two tasks. In the sustained attention task subjects had to respond to all stimuli, in the selective attention task they had to respond to target stimuli only. The coordinates given here refer to areas activated by both tasks.