Dorsal attention network

The dorsal attention network supports the voluntary, top-down allocation of spatial attention: deciding where to look and what to attend to in advance of a stimulus. Its principal nodes are the frontal eye fields in the dorsal frontal cortex and the intraparietal sulcus and superior parietal lobule, with the thalamic pulvinar contributing as a subcortical hub.

It works in tension with a more ventral, right-lateralised system that reorients attention to unexpected but relevant events. Together these systems balance sustained, goal-driven focus against stimulus-driven capture.

Damage to the right-hemisphere components of these parietal and frontal systems is the classic substrate of hemispatial neglect, in which patients fail to attend to the contralateral side of space.