scholarly journals Functional Architecture of Executive Control and Associated Event-Related Potentials

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amirsaman Sajad ◽  
Steven Errington ◽  
Jeffrey Schall
Keyword(s):  
Executive Control ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Spiking Neurons ◽  
Stop Signal Task ◽  
Goal Maintenance ◽  
Task Goal ◽  
Supplementary Eye Field ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Eye Field

Abstract Medial frontal cortex enables executive control by monitoring relevant information and using it to adapt behavior. In macaques performing a saccade countermanding (stop-signal) task, we recorded EEG over and neural spiking across all layers of the supplementary eye field (SEF). We report the laminar organization of concurrently activated neurons monitoring the conflict between incompatible responses and the timing of events serving goal maintenance and executive control. We also show their relation to coincident event-related potentials (ERP). Neurons signaling response conflict were largely broad-spiking found across all layers. Neurons signaling the interval until specific task events were largely broad-spiking neurons concentrated in L3 and L5. Neurons predicting the duration of control and sustaining the task goal until the release of operant control were a mix of narrow- and broad-spiking neurons confined to L2/3. We complement these results with the first report of a monkey homologue of the N2/P3 ERP complex associated with response inhibition. N2 polarization varied with error likelihood and P3 polarization varied with the duration of expected control. The amplitude of the N2 and P3 were predicted by the spike rate of different classes of neurons located in L2/3 but not L5/6. These findings reveal important, new features of the cortical microcircuitry supporting executive control and producing associated ERP.

scholarly journals Cortical Microcircuitry of Executive Control and Source of Associated Event-Related Potentials

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amirsaman Sajad ◽  
Steven P. Errington ◽  
Jeffrey D. Schall
Keyword(s):  
Executive Control ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Stop Signal Task ◽  
Conflict Monitoring ◽  
Goal Maintenance ◽  
Supplementary Eye Field ◽  
Event Timing ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Eye Field ◽  
Upcoming Event

Medial frontal cortex enables executive control by signaling conflict, monitoring and predicting events and outcomes, and goal maintenance, indexed by event-related potentials (ERP). In monkeys performing a saccade countermanding (stop-signal) task, we recorded EEG over and neural spiking across all layers of the supplementary eye field (SEF). Neurons did not contribute to reactive response inhibition. Those signaling response conflict and tracking and predicting the timing of events for successful stopping had different spike widths and were concentrated differently across layers. Conflict neurons were in all layers and those encoding temporal parameters were concentrated in L2/3 and L5. The N2 indexed reward association with variation of polarization predicted by conflict and event timing neurons in L2/3 but not L5/6. The P3 indexed the timing of the upcoming event with variation of polarization predicted by event timing neurons in L2/3 but not L5/6. These findings reveal novel features of the cortical microcircuitry supporting executive control and producing associated ERP.

Spatial Representations as an Emergent Feature of Perceptual Processing

2010 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 161-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edmund Wascher ◽  
C. Beste
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Vertical Axis ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Integrated Network ◽  
Perceptual Maps ◽  
Emergent Feature ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Selection Of

Spatial selection of relevant information has been proposed to reflect an emergent feature of stimulus processing within an integrated network of perceptual areas. Stimulus-based and intention-based sources of information might converge in a common stage when spatial maps are generated. This approach appears to be inconsistent with the assumption of distinct mechanisms for stimulus-driven and top-down controlled attention. In two experiments, the common ground of stimulus-driven and intention-based attention was tested by means of event-related potentials (ERPs) in the human EEG. In both experiments, the processing of a single transient was compared to the selection of a physically comparable stimulus among distractors. While single transients evoked a spatially sensitive N1, the extraction of relevant information out of a more complex display was reflected in an N2pc. The high similarity of the spatial portion of these two components (Experiment 1), and the replication of this finding for the vertical axis (Experiment 2) indicate that these two ERP components might both reflect the spatial representation of relevant information as derived from the organization of perceptual maps, just at different points in time.

scholarly journals Effect of obesity on inhibitory control in preadolescents during stop-signal task. An event-related potentials study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graciela C. Alatorre-Cruz ◽  
Heather Downs ◽  
Darcy Hagood ◽  
Seth T. Sorensen ◽  
D. Keith Williams ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Inhibitory Control ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Stop Signal ◽  
Stop Signal Task ◽  
Related Potentials

scholarly journals Two Types of Action Error: Electrophysiological Evidence for Separable Inhibitory and Sustained Attention Neural Mechanisms Producing Error on Go/No-go Tasks

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Redmond G. O'Connell ◽  
Paul M. Dockree ◽  
Mark A. Bellgrove ◽  
Alessandra Turin ◽  
Seamus Ward ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustained Attention ◽  
Response Inhibition ◽  
Response Competition ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Random Order ◽  
Goal Maintenance ◽  
Error Related Negativity ◽  
Electrophysiological Evidence ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Fixed Condition

Disentangling the component processes that contribute to human executive control is a key challenge for cognitive neuroscience. Here, we employ event-related potentials to provide electrophysiological evidence that action errors during a go/no-go task can result either from sustained attention failures or from failures of response inhibition, and that these two processes are temporally and physiologically dissociable, although the behavioral error—a nonintended response—is the same. Thirteen right-handed participants performed a version of a go/no-go task in which stimuli were presented in a fixed and predictable order, thus encouraging attentional drift, and a second version in which an identical set of stimuli was presented in a random order, thus placing greater emphasis on response inhibition. Electrocortical markers associated with goal maintenance (late positivity, alpha synchronization) distinguished correct and incorrect performance in the fixed condition, whereas errors in the random condition were linked to a diminished N2–P3 inhibitory complex. In addition, the amplitude of the error-related negativity did not differ between correct and incorrect responses in the fixed condition, consistent with the view that errors in this condition do not arise from a failure to resolve response competition. Our data provide an electrophysiological dissociation of sustained attention and response inhibition.

scholarly journals Taking into account latency, amplitude, and morphology: improved estimation of single-trial ERPs by wavelet filtering and multiple linear regression

2011 ◽  
Vol 106 (6) ◽  
pp. 3216-3229 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Hu ◽  
M. Liang ◽  
A. Mouraux ◽  
R. G. Wise ◽  
Y. Hu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Linear Regression ◽  
Multiple Linear Regression ◽  
Pain Perception ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Single Trial ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Wavelet Filtering ◽  
Sensory Stimuli ◽  
Related Potentials

Across-trial averaging is a widely used approach to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of event-related potentials (ERPs). However, across-trial variability of ERP latency and amplitude may contain physiologically relevant information that is lost by across-trial averaging. Hence, we aimed to develop a novel method that uses 1) wavelet filtering (WF) to enhance the SNR of ERPs and 2) a multiple linear regression with a dispersion term (MLRd) that takes into account shape distortions to estimate the single-trial latency and amplitude of ERP peaks. Using simulated ERP data sets containing different levels of noise, we provide evidence that, compared with other approaches, the proposed WF+MLRd method yields the most accurate estimate of single-trial ERP features. When applied to a real laser-evoked potential data set, the WF+MLRd approach provides reliable estimation of single-trial latency, amplitude, and morphology of ERPs and thereby allows performing meaningful correlations at single-trial level. We obtained three main findings. First, WF significantly enhances the SNR of single-trial ERPs. Second, MLRd effectively captures and measures the variability in the morphology of single-trial ERPs, thus providing an accurate and unbiased estimate of their peak latency and amplitude. Third, intensity of pain perception significantly correlates with the single-trial estimates of N2 and P2 amplitude. These results indicate that WF+MLRd can be used to explore the dynamics between different ERP features, behavioral variables, and other neuroimaging measures of brain activity, thus providing new insights into the functional significance of the different brain processes underlying the brain responses to sensory stimuli.

scholarly journals Role of Supplementary Eye Field in Saccade Initiation: Executive, Not Direct, Control

2010 ◽  
Vol 103 (2) ◽  
pp. 801-816 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veit Stuphorn ◽  
Joshua W. Brown ◽  
Jeffrey D. Schall
Keyword(s):  
Discharge Rate ◽  
Stop Signal ◽  
Stop Signal Task ◽  
Frontal Eye Field ◽  
Signal Trial ◽  
Visually Guided ◽  
Supplementary Eye Field ◽  
Task Requirements ◽  
Gaze Holding ◽  
Eye Field

The goal of this study was to determine whether the activity of neurons in the supplementary eye field (SEF) is sufficient to control saccade initiation in macaque monkeys performing a saccade countermanding (stop signal) task. As previously observed, many neurons in the SEF increase the discharge rate before saccade initiation. However, when saccades are canceled in response to a stop signal, effectively no neurons with presaccadic activity display discharge rate modulation early enough to contribute to saccade cancellation. Moreover, SEF neurons do not exhibit a specific threshold discharge rate that could trigger saccade initiation. Yet, we observed more subtle relations between SEF activation and saccade production. The activity of numerous SEF neurons was correlated with response time and varied with sequential adjustments in response latency. Trials in which monkeys canceled or produced a saccade in a stop signal trial were distinguished by a modest difference in discharge rate of these SEF neurons before stop signal or target presentation. These findings indicate that neurons in the SEF, in contrast to counterparts in the frontal eye field and superior colliculus, do not contribute directly and immediately to the initiation of visually guided saccades. However the SEF may proactively regulate saccade production by biasing the balance between gaze-holding and gaze-shifting based on prior performance and anticipated task requirements.

scholarly journals When Memory Is Not Enough: Electrophysiological Evidence for Goal-dependent Use of Working Memory Representations in Guiding Visual Attention

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (10) ◽  
pp. 2650-2664 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy B. Carlisle ◽  
Geoffrey F. Woodman
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Covert Attention ◽  
Behavioral Measures ◽  
Competition Theory ◽  
Attentional Deployment ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Memory Representations

Biased competition theory proposes that representations in working memory drive visual attention to select similar inputs. However, behavioral tests of this hypothesis have led to mixed results. These inconsistent findings could be due to the inability of behavioral measures to reliably detect the early, automatic effects on attentional deployment that the memory representations exert. Alternatively, executive mechanisms may govern how working memory representations influence attention based on higher-level goals. In the present study, we tested these hypotheses using the N2pc component of participants' event-related potentials to directly measure the early deployments of covert attention. Participants searched for a target in an array that sometimes contained a memory-matching distractor. In Experiments 1 to 3, we manipulated the difficulty of the target discrimination and the proximity of distractors, but consistently observed that covert attention was deployed to the search targets and not the memory-matching distractors. In Experiment 4, we showed that when participants' goal involved attending to memory-matching items, these items elicited a large and early N2pc. Our findings demonstrate that working memory representations alone are not sufficient to guide early deployments of visual attention to matching inputs and that goal-dependent executive control mediates the interactions between working memory representations and visual attention.

scholarly journals Decoding Attention Control and Selection in Visual Spatial Attention

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiangfei Hong ◽  
Ke Bo ◽  
Sreenivasan Meyyapan ◽  
Shanbao Tong ◽  
Mingzhou Ding
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Attention ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Attention Control ◽  
Behavioral Performance ◽  
Visual Spatial Attention ◽  
Visual Spatial ◽  
Attention Focus ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Decoding Accuracy

AbstractEvent-related potentials (ERPs) are used extensively to investigate the neural mechanisms of attention control and selection. The commonly applied univariate ERP approach, however, has left important questions inadequately answered. Here, we addressed two questions by applying multivariate pattern classification to multichannel ERPs in two spatial-cueing experiments (N = 56 in total): (1) impact of cueing strategies (instructional vs. probabilistic) and (2) neural and behavioral effects of individual differences. Following the cue onset, the decoding accuracy (cue left vs. cue right) began to rise above chance level earlier and remained higher in instructional cueing (∼80 ms) than in probabilistic cueing (∼160 ms), suggesting that unilateral attention focus leads to earlier and more distinct formation of the attentional set. A similar temporal sequence was also found for target-related processing (cued targets vs. uncued targets), suggesting earlier and stronger attention selection under instructional cueing. Across the two experiments, individuals with higher decoding accuracy during ∼460-660 ms post-cue showed higher magnitude of attentional modulation of target-evoked N1 amplitude, suggesting that better formation of anticipatory attentional state leads to better target processing. During target processing, individual difference in decoding accuracy was positively associated with behavioral performance (reaction time), suggesting that stronger selection of task-relevant information leads to better behavioral performance. Taken together, multichannel ERPs combined with machine learning decoding yields new insights into attention control and selection that are not possible with the univariate ERP approach, and along with the univariate ERP approach, provides a more comprehensive methodology to the study of visual spatial attention.

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