Zoom Link : https://zoom.us/j/94202638450?pwd=DcyA5xUSY6c9W9Rt82JM2CMkt4f2EG.1

Abstract: Flexible allocation of attentional resources to different spatial loci is crucial to meet the demands of a dynamic environment that we navigate daily. The inability to adaptively redistribute spatial attention may lead to constricted or tunnel vision, which may compromise sampling the span of the visual field towards optimizing visually guided behaviour. This is of interest in anxious individuals, known to have biases in visual processing. We used a modified affect-primed, visual-spatial behavioural attention task with structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) in a sample of healthy young adults with varying degrees of trait(dispositional) anxiety (n = 60 with 23 females; age [mean ± s.d.] = 22.8 ± 3.8 y). Using objective measures from the behavioural task and sMRI, we explored if a) fear and neutral affect from image primes differed relative to no affect (scrambled image prime) in modulating the distribution of visual spatial attention; b) an association existed between the gray matter volume (GMV) of any particular region(s) of the whole brain and a measure of the spatial distribution of attention by individual valences of affect and overall. We calculated the spatial gradient of visual attention (a metric for tunnel vision) using measures of attentional efficiency. There was no effect of emotional valences on attentional distribution but the average gradient (across emotional valences), correlated negatively with the GMV of right cerebellum lobule VI. Additionally, the strength of this negative correlation within bilateral cerebellar lobule VI was moderated by inter individual differences of anxiety, that conspicuously varied between females and males. 

Overall, the results suggest that young, adults with lesser GMV of cerebellar lobule VI may manifest greater individual severity of tunnel vision, which is likely more pronounced in females than males. The results suggest a non-classical role of cerebellar lobule VI in tuning fine-grained spatial attention in this cohort

About the Speaker:

Dr. Mrinmoy Chakrabarty

(Asst. Prof., Social Sciences and Humanities, IIIT, Delhi)

https://www.iiitd.ac.in/mrinmoy