Biology subjects

Bidet-Caulet, A.

Publications and source records attributed to Bidet-Caulet, A..

14 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Interaction of involuntary and executive attention during development

Attentional control requires the fine-tuned interaction of attentional networks supporting alertness, orienting and higher-level executive control. This study examined the interaction of executive attention, comprising inhibition, and involuntary orienting towards unexpected deviant sounds in children (6-8-years, N=30), adolescents (10-12-years, N=39) and adults (18-34-years, N=35). An auditory equiprobable Go/Nogo-Oddball paradigm was employed to investigate executive (Go/Nogo) and involuntary (Oddball) attention and their interaction. Event-related potentials (ERP) in the EEG, pupil dilation and behavioral data were analyzed using Bayesian statistics. Deviant sounds evoked an involuntary attentional orienting reflected by the ERP component P3a and decreased performance in all age groups. The distraction effect diminished with age. Pupil dilation in response to deviant and target sounds were modulated by involuntary and executive attention but showed no interaction. In the EEG, frontal Nogo-N2 and Nogo-P3 effects, which reflect response inhibition, appeared in standard trials but not in deviant trials. This interaction suggests that response inhibition is reduced by involuntary attention orienting. While all age groups showed similar amplitudes of the Nogo-N2 effect, the subsequent Nogo- P3 effect, which has been associated to motor inhibition, was absent in the 6-8-year-olds. Age differences observed in latencies of the Nogo-N2 effect but not in the latencies of the Nogo- P3 effect (between adolescents and adults) indicate distinct developmental trajectories of the response inhibition mechanisms underlying the Nogo-N2 and Nogo-P3 effects throughout childhood and adolescence. The present data provide novel insights into the interaction between executive and orienting attention networks in the auditory modality during development.

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bioRxiv2025

Tuned to explore: Increased phasic responses to auditory targets and novelty in children regardless of induced tonic arousal

The ability to focus on relevant information while ignoring distractions is critical during childhood, as it supports learning, social interaction, and adaptation to changing environments. This attentional balance is thought to depend in part on arousal regulation, mediated by the activity of the locus coeruleus norepinephrine (LC-NE) system. Moderate levels of arousal are typically associated with optimal cognitive performance. However, the interaction between arousal and attention remains poorly understood in humans, especially during development. In this study, we investigated whether experimentally modulating tonic arousal, the baseline level of physiological alertness, affects attentional processing in children (N = 44, aged 6-8) and adults (N = 46, aged 18-35). Participants performed an active auditory three-stimulus (standard, novel, target) oddball task, designed to assess selective attention to target tones and distraction by novel sounds. Prior to each task block, tonic arousal was manipulated using music or videos varying in arousing content. Physiological responses were recorded continuously (skin conductance, pupil dilation, heart rate) to index both tonic arousal and transient, phasic changes in arousal triggered by task events. While tonic arousal modulation was successful, as confirmed by skin conductance levels, Bayesian analyses provided evidence for no effect of this modulation on subsequent attentional processing. Importantly, children generally exhibited stronger phasic arousal responses, particularly to task-irrelevant novel sounds, reflecting less mature regulation of attention and arousal. These findings show developmental differences in physiological responses to unexpected environmental stimuli and provide physiological evidence of increased distractibility during childhood.

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bioRxiv2024

Global and selective effects of auditory attention on arousal: insights from pupil dilation

Theoretical models of attention propose that norepinephrine (NE) can induce both a global boost of arousal and selective amplification of high-priority stimuli, yet few tasks have tested these dual effects in humans. Here, we used pupillometry in an auditory detection task, the Competitive Attention Test (CAT), previously performed in large cohort studies, to examine how task engagement (active vs. passive) and stimulus relevance (informative vs. uninformative cues) modulate arousal. Results showed that both relevant and irrelevant sounds elicited larger pupil dilation under active conditions, indicating a global arousal effect. Crucially, only relevant sounds benefited from an additional dilation when preceded by an informative cue, demonstrating a selective arousal mechanism associated to top-down attention. These findings illustrate the NEs dual role in boosting overall alertness while selectively enhancing high-priority stimuli. Beyond theoretical implications, this work highlights that the CAT captures measurable arousal components, reinforcing its utility for clinical assessments of attention-arousal clinical disruptions.

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bioRxiv2024

Neurophysiological Patterns of Attention and Distraction during Realistic Virtual-Reality Classroom Learning in Adults with and without ADHD

Many people, and particularly individuals with Attention Deficit (Hyperactivity) Disorder (AD(H)D), find it difficult to maintain attention during classroom learning. However, traditional paradigms used to evaluate attention do not capture the complexity and dynamic nature of real-life classrooms. Using a novel Virtual Reality platform, coupled with measurement of neural activity, eye-gaze and skin conductance, here we studied the neurophysiological manifestations of attention and distractibility, under realistic learning conditions. Individuals with AD(H)D exhibited higher neural responses to irrelevant sounds and reduced speech tracking of the teacher, relative to controls. Additional neurophysiological measures, such the power of alpha-oscillations and frequency of gaze-shifts away from the teacher, contributed to explaining variance in self-reported AD(H)D symptoms across the sample. These ecologically-valid findings provide critical insight into the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying individual differences in the capacity for sustained attention and the proneness to distraction and mind-wandering, experienced in real-life situations.

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bioRxiv2024

Enhancing tonic arousal improves voluntary but not involuntary attention in humans

Arousal and attention are fundamental brain functions that play a critical role in optimizing performance. Kahnemans attention model (1973) theorizes a key interplay between attention and arousal, yet this relationship remains poorly understood. Using a multimodal approach, we investigated this interaction in healthy young adults performing an auditory attention task designed to simultaneously assess phasic arousal, voluntary attention, and involuntary attention. Furthermore, tonic arousal was experimentally modulated with low or high arousing music, as confirmed by changes in pupil size and heart rate. Behavioral data confirmed that informative cues enhanced voluntary attention, while unexpected salient task-irrelevant sounds (so-called distractors) produced either shortened or lengthened reaction times depending on their timing relative to target onset. Physiological data indicated that the facilitation effect of distractors on reaction times was driven by increases in phasic arousal. This benefit was further modulated by a dynamic interplay between phasic arousal and voluntary attention over time. Supporting Aston-Jones and Cohens theory, a fronto-central cortical response to distractors revealed that tonic and phasic arousal interact in line with an inverted U-shaped relationship. This study provides empirical evidence, in humans, that tonic arousal can optimize performance by tuning phasic arousal and attentional control.

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bioRxiv2023

Auditory selective attention during a working memory task with melodies: a MEG study

Working memory and attention are jointly needed in most everyday life tasks and activities. They have however mostly been studied separately. Here we investigate how auditory working memory and selective attention interact using a recently introduced paradigm (MEMAT) that combines a classic working memory paradigm, the delayed-matching-to-sample task, and selective attention, with distractors presented during the encoding phase. All stimuli are four-tone melodies. Twenty-two participants performed the MEMAT task during MEG recordings. We manipulate the difficulty of the memory task and of attentional filtering. When memory task difficulty increases, the amplitude of the CNV in anticipation of the melody to encode increases and the decrease in alpha power during encoding and maintenance in a left fronto-temporal network is reduced. When attentional filtering difficulty increases, the amplitude of the sustained evoked response during encoding increases, whereas the differential processing of relevant and irrelevant sounds in auditory areas is less pronounced, and frontal theta power during encoding and maintenance is higher. In the left auditory cortex, we could directly observe the result of the interaction between auditory memory and attention: the facilitation of relevant sound processing in the easy filtering condition was reduced when the memory task difficulty increased. This pattern mirrors the observed behavioral effects. Overall brain dynamics highlight reciprocal influences of working memory and selective attention processes, in keeping with shared cognitive resources between them.

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bioRxiv2022

When do we become more prone to distraction? Progressive evolution of the different components of distractibility from early to late adulthood.

Life expectancy has steadily increased for over a century; we thus live longer and are more likely to experience cognitive difficulties such as increased distractibility which can hamper autonomy. This cross-sectional behavioral study aimed to characterize the decline of the cognitive components of distractibility during typical aging, and the onset of this decline. 191 participants from 21 to 86 years old, distributed within seven age groups, were tested using the Competitive Attention Test. Results indicate that cognitive components contributing to distractibility follow different trajectories with aging: voluntary orienting remains stable from 21 to 86 years old, sustained attention decreases while distraction increases between 26 and 86 years old, finally, impulsivity is lower in older compared to younger adults. Increased distractibility in older adults thus seems to result from a dominance of involuntary over voluntary attention processes, whose detrimental effect on performance is partly compensated by enhanced recruitment of motor control.

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bioRxiv2021

Increase of both bottom-up and top-down attentional processes in high dream recallers

Event-related potentials (ERPs) associated with the involuntary orientation of (bottom-up) attention towards an unexpected sound are of larger amplitude in high dream recallers (HR) than in low dream recallers (LR) during passive listening, suggesting different attentional functioning. We measured bottom-up and top-down attentional performance and their cerebral correlates in 18 HR (11 women, age = 22.7 {+/-} 4.1 years, dream recall frequency = 5.3 {+/-} 1.3 days with a dream recall per week) and 19 LR (10 women, age = 22.3, DRF = 0.2 {+/-}0.2) using EEG and the Competitive Attention Task. Between-group differences were found in ERPs but not in behavior. The results confirm that HR present larger ERPs to distracting sounds than LR during active listening, suggesting enhanced bottom-up processing of irrelevant sounds. HR also presented a larger contingent negative variation during target expectancy and a larger P3b response to target sounds than LR, speaking for an enhanced recruitment of top-down attention. Enhancement of both top-down and bottom-up processes in HR leads to an apparently preserved attentional balance since similar performance were observed in the two groups. Therefore, different neurophysiological profiles can result in similar cognitive performance, with some profiles possibly costlier in term of resource/energy consumption.

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bioRxiv2021

The development of attention and distractibility in preschool children from higher and lower socioeconomic status backgrounds

In children, the ability to listen to relevant auditory information and suppress distracting information is a foundational skill for learning and educational achievement. Distractibility is supported by multiple cognitive components (voluntary attention orienting, sustained attention, distraction, phasic arousal, as well as impulsivity and motor control) that may mature at different ages. Here we used the Competitive Attention Test (CAT) to measure these components in 71 4- and 5-year-old children. The goal of this study was to characterize the changes in efficiency of attention during the preschool period, and to explore differences in distractibility in preschool children that could be related to the socioeconomic status (SES) background of the childs family. We found that sustained attention improves from age 4 to 5, while voluntary attention orienting is still immature during the preschool period. In addition, independent of age, task-irrelevant sounds induced distraction, phasic arousal, and impulsivity. Children from lower SES backgrounds showed reduced sustained attention abilities and increased impulsivity. However, 3-year-old children and a minority of 4- and 5-year-olds did not manage to perform the task according to the instructions; the CAT thus seems suitable to assess distractibility only in preschoolers with sufficiently developed sustained attention skills to efficiently complete the task. Taken together, the present findings suggest that distractibility is still developing during the preschool period and is likely to vary depending on the SES background of a childs family.

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bioRxiv2019

Why are children so distractible? Development of attentional capacities and phasic arousal from childhood to adulthood.

Distractibility is the propensity to behaviorally react to irrelevant information. Though children are more distractible the younger they are, the precise contribution of attentional and motor components to distractibility and their developmental trajectories have not been characterized yet. We used a new behavioral paradigm to identify the developmental dynamics of components contributing to distractibility in a large cohort of French participants balanced, between age groups, in gender and socio-economic status (N=352; age: 6-25). Results reveal that each measure of these components, namely voluntary attention, distraction, impulsivity and motor control, present a distinct maturational timeline. In young children, increased distractibility is mostly the result of reduced sustained attention capacities and enhanced distraction, while in teenagers, it is the result of decreased motor control and increased impulsivity.

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bioRxiv2019

Attentional alterations in migraine: a behavioral and M/EEG study

AO_SCPLOWBSTRACTC_SCPLOWO_ST_ABSObjectivesC_ST_ABSTo evaluate alterations of top-down and/or bottom-up attention in migraine and their cortical underpinnings. Methods19 migraineurs between attacks and 19 matched control participants performed a task evaluating jointly top-down and bottom-up attention, using visually-cued target sounds and unexpected task-irrelevant distracting sounds. Behavioral responses and MEG/EEG were recorded. Event-related potentials and fields (ERPs/ERFs) were processed and source reconstruction was applied to ERFs. ResultsAt the behavioral level, neither top-down nor bottom-up attentional processes appeared to be altered in migraine. However, migraineurs presented heightened evoked responses following distracting sounds (orienting component of the N1 and Re-Orienting Negativity, RON) and following target sounds (orienting component of the N1), concomitant to an increased recruitment of the right temporo-parietal junction. They also displayed an increased effect of the cue informational value on target processing resulting in the elicitation of a negative difference (Nd). ConclusionsMigraineurs appear to display increased bottom-up orienting response to all incoming sounds, and an enhanced recruitment of top-down attention. SignificanceThe interictal state in migraine is characterized by an exacerbation of the orienting response to attended and unattended sounds. These attentional alterations might participate to the peculiar vulnerability of the migraine brain to all incoming stimuli. HO_SCPLOWIGHLIGHTSC_SCPLOWO_LIMigraineurs performed as well as healthy participants in an attention task. C_LIO_LIHowever, EEG markers of both bottom-up and top-down attention are increased. C_LIO_LIMigraine is also associated with a facilitated recruitment of the right temporo-parietal junction. C_LI

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bioRxiv2018

Not Just A Number: Age-Related Modulations of Oscillatory Patterns Underlying Top-Down and Bottom-Up Attention.

Attention operates through top-down (TD) and bottom-up (BU) mechanisms. Recently, it has been shown that slow (alpha) frequencies index facilitatory and suppressive mechanisms of TD attention and faster (gamma) frequencies signal BU attentional capture. Ageing is characterized by increased behavioral distractibility, resulting from either a reduced efficiency of TD attention or an enhanced triggering of BU attention. However, only few studies have investigated the impact of ageing upon the oscillatory activities involved in TD and BU attention. MEG data were collected from 14 elderly and 14 matched young healthy human participants while performing the Competitive Attention Task. Elderly participants displayed (1) exacerbated behavioral distractibility, (2) altered TD suppressive mechanisms, indexed by a reduced alpha synchronization in task-irrelevant regions, (3) less prominent alpha peak-frequency differences between cortical regions, (4) a similar BU system activation indexed by gamma activity, and (5) a reduced activation of lateral prefrontal inhibitory control regions. These results show that the ageing-related increased distractibility is of TD origin.

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bioRxiv2018

What is in Your Gamma? Activation of The Ventral Fronto-Parietal Attentional Network in Response to Distracting Sounds

Auditory attention operates through top-down (TD) and bottom-up (BU) mechanisms that are supported by dorsal and ventral brain networks, respectively, with the main overlap in the lateral prefrontal cortex (lPFC). A good TD/BU balance is essential to be both task-efficient and aware of our environment, yet it is rarely investigated. Oscillatory activity is a novel method to probe the attentional dynamics with evidence that gamma activity (>30Hz) could signal BU processing and thus would be a good candidate to support the activation of the ventral BU network. MEG data were collected from 21 young adults performing the Competitive Attention Task which enables simultaneous investigation of BU and TD attentional mechanisms. Distracting sounds elicited an increase in gamma activity in regions of the BU ventral network. TD attention modulated these gamma responses in regions of the inhibitory cognitive control system: the medial prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices. Finally, distracting-sound-induced gamma activity was synchronous between the auditory cortices and several distant brain regions, notably the lPFC. We provide novel insight into the role of gamma activity (1) in supporting the activation of the BU ventral network, and (2) in subtending the TD/BU attention balance in the prefrontal cortex.

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bioRxiv2018

Fronto-central P3a to distracting sounds: an index of their arousing properties

The P3a observed after novel events is an event-related potential comprising an early fronto-central phase and a late fronto-parietal phase. It has classically been considered to reflect the attention processing of distracting stimuli. However, novel sounds can lead to behavioral facilitation as much as behavioral distraction. This illustrates the duality of the orienting response which includes both an attentional and an arousal component. Using a paradigm with visual or auditory targets to detect and irrelevant unexpected distracting sounds to ignore, we showed that the facilitation effect by distracting sounds is independent of the target modality and endures more than 1500 ms. These results confirm that the behavioral facilitation observed after distracting sounds is related to an increase in unspecific phasic arousal on top of the attentional capture. Moreover, the amplitude of the early phase of the P3a to distracting sounds positively correlated with subjective arousal ratings, contrary to other event-related potentials. We propose that the fronto-central early phase of the P3a would index the arousing properties of distracting sounds and would be linked to the arousal component of the orienting response. Finally, we discuss the relevance of the P3a as a marker of distraction.

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