Abstract：
Effective visual search is essential for daily life, and attention orientation as well as inhibition of return play a significant role in visual search. Researches have established the involvement of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in cognitive control during selective attention. However, neural evidence regarding dorsolateral prefrontal cortex modulates inhibition of return in visual search is still insufficient. In this study, we employed event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging and dynamic causal modeling to develop modulation models for two types of visual search tasks. In the region of interest analyses, we found that the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal junction were selectively activated in the main effect of search type. Dynamic causal modeling results indicated that temporoparietal junction received sensory inputs and only dorsolateral prefrontal cortex →temporoparietal junction connection was modulated in serial search. Such neural modulation presents a significant positive correlation with behavioral reaction time. Furthermore, theta burst stimulation via transcranial magnetic stimulation was utilized to modulate the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex region, resulting in the disappearance of the inhibition of return effect during serial search after receiving continuous theta burst stimulation. Our findings provide a new line of causal evidence that the top-down modulation by dorsolateral prefrontal cortex influences the inhibition of return effect during serial search possibly through the retention of inhibitory tagging via working memory storage.
摘要：
有效的视觉搜索对日常生活至关重要，注意取向以及对返回的抑制在视觉搜索中起着重要作用。研究已经确定了背外侧前额叶皮层参与选择性注意过程中的认知控制。然而,关于背外侧前额叶皮层调节视觉搜索返回抑制的神经证据仍然不足。在这项研究中,我们采用事件相关的功能磁共振成像和动态因果模型来开发两种视觉搜索任务的调制模型.在感兴趣的区域分析中，我们发现右背外侧前额叶皮层和颞顶交界处被选择性激活，其主要效应为搜索类型。动态因果建模结果表明，颞顶交界处接受了感觉输入，并且在连续搜索中仅调制了背外侧前额叶皮层→颞顶交界处的连接。这种神经调节与行为反应时间呈显著正相关。此外，通过经颅磁刺激的theta爆发刺激用于调节背外侧前额叶皮层区域，导致在接受连续theta爆发刺激后的连续搜索过程中返回效果的抑制消失。我们的发现提供了一条新的因果证据，即背外侧前额叶皮层的自上而下的调节可能通过通过工作记忆存储保留抑制性标记来影响连续搜索过程中对返回效应的抑制。
