Building the multitasking brain: An integrated perspective on functional brain activation during task-switching and dual-tasking

In this study, we instead integrate two commonly studied substrates of multitasking, task-switching and dual-tasking, within the same procedural context. This method allows not only a direct comparison of performance costs associated with different demand types but also examination of their interaction. We measured functional brain activation in thirty healthy young adults as they completed a block-design version of the task, observing consistent and separable patterns of frontoparietal activation as a function of demand type. Broadly, task-switching was associated with activation of left premotor and inferior parietal regions, and dual-tasking was associated with activation in regions of right prefrontal and inferior parietal cortex. In the interaction condition, we observed a distributed bilateral pattern of activation across the areas associated with each demand in isolation. These results provide both behavioral and neuroimaging evidence that task-switching and dual-tasking demands can be dissociated and contribute to multitasking costs in unique and separable ways.
Source: Neuropsychologia - Category: Neurology Source Type: research
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