Cortical and subcortical functional specificity associated with response inhibition

Leah Maizey,C John Evans,Nils Muhlert,Frederick Verbruggen,Christopher D Chambers,Christopher P.G Allen

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117110

Leah Maizey, C John Evans + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117110

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Abstract

Is motor response inhibition supported by a specialised neuronal inhibitory control mechanism, or by a more general system of action updating? This pre-registered study employed a context-cueing paradigm requiring both inhibitory and non-inhibitory action updating in combination with functional magnetic resonance imaging to test the specificity of responses under different updating conditions, including the cancellation of actions. Cortical regions of activity were found to be common to multiple forms of action updating. However, functional specificity during response inhibition was observed in the anterior right inferior frontal gyrus. In addition, fronto-subcortical activity was explored using a novel contrast method. These exploratory results indicate that the specificity for response inhibition observed in right prefrontal cortex continued downstream and was observed in right hemisphere subcortical activity, while left hemisphere activity was associated with right-hand response execution. Overall, our findings reveal both common and distinct correlates of response inhibition in prefrontal cortex, with exploratory analyses supporting putative models of subcortical pathways and extending them through the demonstration of lateralisation.

Highlights

Response inhibition, the ability to suppress motor responses that are inappropriate or no longer required, supports flexible, goal-directed behaviour
Perceptual confounds are controlled through the introduction of an additional task in which participants are instructed to ignore the infrequent signal
We first describe the outcome of pre-registered behavioural analyses and our primary imaging analyses aimed at delineating the pattern of cortical activity under inhibitory and non-inhibitory action updating conditions

Summary

Introduction

The ability to suppress motor responses that are inappropriate or no longer required, supports flexible, goal-directed behaviour. The specificity of neurocognitive systems for response inhibition can be tested by comparing behaviour or brain activity in the SST with control tasks in which actions are updated without response inhibition One such task is the double-response task (DT) in which stimulus presentation mimics the SST but requires the execution of an additional rapid response following the infrequent signal, as opposed to the inhibition of a response (Chatham et al, 2012; Dodds et al, 2011; Erika-Florence et al, 2014; Hampshire, 2015; Hampshire et al, 2010; Tabu et al, 2011; Verbruggen et al, 2010). Perceptual confounds are controlled through the introduction of an additional task in which participants are instructed to ignore the infrequent signal

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