The Role of the Frontal and Parietal Cortex in Proactive and Reactive Inhibitory Control: A Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Study

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying Cai ◽  
Siyao Li ◽  
Jing Liu ◽  
Dawei Li ◽  
Zifang Feng ◽  
...  

Mounting evidence suggests that response inhibition involves both proactive and reactive inhibitory control, yet its underlying neural mechanisms remain elusive. In particular, the roles of the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and inferior parietal lobe (IPL) in proactive and reactive inhibitory control are still under debate. This study aimed at examining the causal role of the right IFG and IPL in proactive and reactive inhibitory control, using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and the stop signal task. Twenty-two participants completed three sessions of the stop signal task, under anodal tDCS in the right IFG, the right IPL, or the primary visual cortex (VC; 1.5 mA for 15 min), respectively. The VC stimulation served as the active control condition. The tDCS effect for each condition was calculated as the difference between pre- and post-tDCS performance. Proactive control was indexed by the RT increase for go trials (or preparatory cost), and reactive control by the stop signal RT. Compared to the VC stimulation, anodal stimulation of the right IFG, but not that of the IPL, facilitated both proactive and reactive control. However, the facilitation of reactive control was not mediated by the facilitation of proactive control. Furthermore, tDCS did not affect the intraindividual variability in go RT. These results suggest a causal role of the right IFG, but not the right IPL, in both reactive and proactive inhibitory control.

2013 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bram B. Zandbelt ◽  
Mirjam Bloemendaal ◽  
Janna Marie Hoogendam ◽  
René S. Kahn ◽  
Matthijs Vink

Stopping an action requires suppression of the primary motor cortex (M1). Inhibitory control over M1 relies on a network including the right inferior frontal cortex (rIFC) and the supplementary motor complex (SMC), but how these regions interact to exert inhibitory control over M1 is unknown. Specifically, the hierarchical position of the rIFC and SMC with respect to each other, the routes by which these regions control M1, and the causal involvement of these regions in proactive and reactive inhibition remain unclear. We used off-line repetitive TMS to perturb neural activity in the rIFC and SMC followed by fMRI to examine effects on activation in the networks involved in proactive and reactive inhibition, as assessed with a modified stop-signal task. We found repetitive TMS effects on reactive inhibition only. rIFC and SMC stimulation shortened the stop-signal RT (SSRT) and a shorter SSRT was associated with increased M1 deactivation. Furthermore, rIFC and SMC stimulation increased right striatal activation, implicating frontostriatal pathways in reactive inhibition. Finally, rIFC stimulation altered SMC activation, but SMC stimulation did not alter rIFC activation, indicating that rIFC lies upstream from SMC. These findings extend our knowledge about the functional organization of inhibitory control, an important component of executive functioning, showing that rIFC exerts reactive control over M1 via SMC and right striatum.


2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (8) ◽  
pp. 1601-1614 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corey N. White ◽  
Eliza Congdon ◽  
Jeanette A. Mumford ◽  
Katherine H. Karlsgodt ◽  
Fred W. Sabb ◽  
...  

The stop-signal task, in which participants must inhibit prepotent responses, has been used to identify neural systems that vary with individual differences in inhibitory control. To explore how these differences relate to other aspects of decision making, a drift-diffusion model of simple decisions was fitted to stop-signal task data from go trials to extract measures of caution, motor execution time, and stimulus processing speed for each of 123 participants. These values were used to probe fMRI data to explore individual differences in neural activation. Faster processing of the go stimulus correlated with greater activation in the right frontal pole for both go and stop trials. On stop trials, stimulus processing speed also correlated with regions implicated in inhibitory control, including the right inferior frontal gyrus, medial frontal gyrus, and BG. Individual differences in motor execution time correlated with activation of the right parietal cortex. These findings suggest a robust relationship between the speed of stimulus processing and inhibitory processing at the neural level. This model-based approach provides novel insight into the interrelationships among decision components involved in inhibitory control and raises interesting questions about strategic adjustments in performance and inhibitory deficits associated with psychopathology.


Symmetry ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 1602
Author(s):  
Christian Mancini ◽  
Giovanni Mirabella

The relationship between handedness, laterality, and inhibitory control is a valuable benchmark for testing the hypothesis of the right-hemispheric specialization of inhibition. According to this theory, and given that to stop a limb movement, it is sufficient to alter the activity of the contralateral hemisphere, then suppressing a left arm movement should be faster than suppressing a right-arm movement. This is because, in the latter case, inhibitory commands produced in the right hemisphere should be sent to the other hemisphere. Further, as lateralization of cognitive functions in left-handers is less pronounced than in right-handers, in the former, the inhibitory control should rely on both hemispheres. We tested these predictions on a medium-large sample of left- and right-handers (n = 52). Each participant completed two sessions of the reaching versions of the stop-signal task, one using the right arm and one using the left arm. We found that reactive and proactive inhibition do not differ according to handedness. However, we found a significant advantage of the right versus the left arm in canceling movements outright. By contrast, there were no differences in proactive inhibition. As we also found that participants performed movements faster with the right than with the left arm, we interpret our results in light of the dominant role of the left hemisphere in some aspects of motor control.


2012 ◽  
Vol 108 (2) ◽  
pp. 380-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weidong Cai ◽  
Jobi S. George ◽  
Frederick Verbruggen ◽  
Christopher D. Chambers ◽  
Adam R. Aron

Rapidly stopping action engages a network in the brain including the right presupplementary motor area (preSMA), the right inferior frontal gyrus, and the basal ganglia. Yet the functional role of these different regions within the overall network still remains unclear. Here we focused on the role of the right preSMA in behavioral stopping. We hypothesized that the underlying neurocognitive function of this region is one or more of setting up a stopping rule in advance, modulating response tendencies (e.g., slowing down in anticipation of stopping), and implementing stopping when the stop signal occurs. We performed two experiments with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)–guided, event-related, transcranial magnetic stimulation(TMS), during the performance of variants of the stop signal task. In experiment 1 we show that stimulation of the right preSMA versus vertex (control site) slowed the implementation of stopping (measured via stop signal reaction time) but had no influence on modulation of response tendencies. In experiment 2, we showed that stimulation of the right preSMA slowed implementation of stopping in a mechanistically selective form of stopping but had no influence on setting up stopping rules. The results go beyond the replication of prior findings by showing that TMS of the right preSMA impairs stopping behavior (including a behaviorally selective form of stopping) through a specific disruption of the implementation of stopping. Future studies are required to establish whether this was due to stimulation of the right preSMA itself or because of remote effects on the wider stopping network.


2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 176-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salvatore Campanella ◽  
Elisa Schroder ◽  
Aurore Monnart ◽  
Marie-Anne Vanderhasselt ◽  
Romain Duprat ◽  
...  

Inhibitory control refers to the ability to inhibit an action once it has been initiated. Impaired inhibitory control plays a key role in triggering relapse in some pathological states, such as addictions. Therefore, a major challenge of current research is to establish new methods to strengthen inhibitory control in these “high-risk” populations. In this attempt, the right inferior frontal cortex (rIFC), a neural correlate crucial for inhibitory control, was modulated using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Healthy participants (n = 31) were presented with a “Go/No-go” task, a well-known paradigm to measure inhibitory control. During this task, an event-related potential (ERP) recording (T1; 32 channels) was performed. One subgroup (n = 15) was randomly assigned to a condition with tDCS (anodal electrode was placed on the rIFC and the cathodal on the neck); and the other group (n = 16) to a condition with sham (placebo) tDCS. After one 20- minute neuromodulation session, all participants were confronted again with the same ERP Go/No-go task (T2). To ensure that potential tDCS effects were specific to inhibition, ERPs to a face-detection task were also recorded at T1 and T2 in both subgroups. The rate of commission errors on the Go/No-go task was similar between T1 and T2 in both neuromodulation groups. However, the amplitude of the P3d component, indexing the inhibition function per se, was reduced at T2 as compared with T1. This effect was specific for participants in the tDCS (and not sham) condition for correctly inhibited trials. No difference in the P3 component was observable between both subgroups at T1 and T2 for the face detection task. Overall, the present data indicate that boosting the rIFC specifically enhances inhibitory skills by decreasing the neural activity needed to correctly inhibit a response.


2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (8) ◽  
pp. 1775-1784 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franziska Dambacher ◽  
Alexander T. Sack ◽  
Jill Lobbestael ◽  
Arnoud Arntz ◽  
Suzanne Brugman ◽  
...  

The ability of inhibiting impulsive urges is paramount for human behavior. Such successful response inhibition has consistently been associated with activity in pFC. The current study aims to unravel the differential involvement of different areas within right pFC for successful action restraint versus action cancellation. These two conceptually different aspects of action inhibition were measured with a go/no-go task (action restraint) and a stop signal task (action cancellation). Localization of relevant prefrontal activation was based on fMRI data. Significant task-related activation during successful action restraint was localized for each participant individually in right anterior insula (rAI), right superior frontal gyrus, and pre-SMA. Activation during successful action cancellation was localized in rAI, right middle frontal gyrus, and pre-SMA. Subsequently, fMRI-guided continuous thetaburst stimulation was applied to these regions. Results showed that the disruption of neural activity in rAI reduced both the ability to restrain (go/no-go) and cancel (stop signal) responses. In contrast, continuous thetaburst stimulation-induced disruption of the right superior frontal gyrus specifically impaired the ability to restrain from responding (go/no-go), while leaving the ability for action cancellation largely intact. Stimulation applied to right middle frontal gyrus and pre-SMA did not affect inhibitory processing in neither of the two tasks. These findings provide a more comprehensive perspective on the role of pFC in inhibition and cognitive control. The results emphasize the role of inferior frontal regions for global inhibition, whereas superior frontal regions seem to be specifically relevant for successful action restraint.


2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanna Wagner ◽  
Jan R. Wessel ◽  
Ayda Ghahremani ◽  
Adam R. Aron

Many studies have examined the rapid stopping of action as a proxy of human self-control. Several methods have shown that a critical focus for stopping is the right inferior frontal cortex. Moreover, electrocorticography studies have shown beta band power increases in the right inferior frontal cortex and in the BG for successful versus failed stop trials, before the time of stopping elapses, perhaps underpinning a prefrontal–BG network for inhibitory control. Here, we tested whether the same signature might be visible in scalp electroencephalography (EEG)—which would open important avenues for using this signature in studies of the recruitment and timing of prefrontal inhibitory control. We used independent component analysis and time–frequency approaches to analyze EEG from three different cohorts of healthy young volunteers (48 participants in total) performing versions of the standard stop signal task. We identified a spectral power increase in the band 13–20 Hz that occurs after the stop signal, but before the time of stopping elapses, with a right frontal topography in the EEG. This right frontal beta band increase was significantly larger for successful compared with failed stops in two of the three studies. We also tested the hypothesis that unexpected events recruit the same frontal system for stopping. Indeed, we show that the stopping-related right-lateralized frontal beta signature was also active after unexpected events (and we accordingly provide data and scripts for the method). These results validate a right frontal beta signature in the EEG as a temporally precise and functionally significant neural marker of the response inhibition process.


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