Guest Speaker: Dr. Michael Esterman (Associate Professor at the Boston University School of Medicine)

Talk Title: Neurocognitive models of sustained attention and their clinical application

Abstract: Sustaining a moderate level of attention over time is critical to the performance of many everyday activities, such as driving, reading, or listening to a lecture. Remaining focused is challenging, however, and, in reality, our attention waxes and wanes. At times our attention is focused on task goals, while at others our focus is lost through distraction, fatigue, or lack of motivation. Although such fluctuations in attention are commonplace, only recently has research been dedicated to better understanding their occurrence, their clinical relevance, and their relationship to ongoing brain activity. I will introduce our neurocognitive approach to characterizing intra- and interindividual differences sustained attention. I will also present recent work characterizing how sustained attention can be disrupted by external distraction, especially distractors that are highly salient due to their affective and/or arousing nature. I will next demonstrate, using an information processing perspective, how sustained attention is linked to coordinated activity in multiple brain networks. Using this framework, I will illustrate that attention can be impacted negatively across a range of pathologies, with a particular focus traumatic stress. Finally, I will highlight how sustained attention and the underlying neural circuits can serve as targets for interventions aimed at enhancing cognitive and mental health.