Study of Brain Attention Control and Visual Processing in Adults With or Without Brain Lesions

What this Trial Is About

Researchers are studying how people with brain damage and those without process visual information, focusing on the brain areas involved in attention. This research aims to understand how the prefrontal and parietal cortex regions influence visual processing and attention. The study compares performance between patients with focal brain lesions and healthy volunteers during cognitive and imaging tasks to explore these brain functions. Participants will attend between 4 and 10 visits over 1 to 2 years at the NIH Clinical Center, with each visit lasting about 2 hours. They will undergo medical history reviews, physical exams, and cognitive tests, which may be written or computer-based. Some participants may have functional MRI scans while performing decision-making tasks, and others may be randomly selected for magnetoencephalography MEG to measure brain activity. Eye movements may be monitored during behavioral training and imaging sessions. Participants will complete cognitive assessments of thinking and memory at initial and follow-up visits. Imaging studies like fMRI and MEG will record brain activity related to attention. Researchers will measure MRI signals across the whole brain during scans. The study monitors participants for up to two years, involving multiple assessments to understand attentional control mechanisms in the brain.

Top-Down Attentional Control of Visual-Processing