Abstract
Cognitive control requires the suppression of distracting information in order to focus on task-relevant information. We applied EEG source reconstruction via time-frequency linear constrained minimum variance beamforming to help elucidate the neural mechanisms involved in spatial conflict processing. Human subjects performed a Simon task, in which conflict was induced by incongruence between spatial location and response hand. We found an early (∼200 ms post-stimulus) conflict modulation in stimulus-contralateral parietal gamma (30–50 Hz), followed by a later alpha-band (8–12 Hz) conflict modulation, suggesting an early detection of spatial conflict and inhibition of spatial location processing. Inter-regional connectivity analyses assessed via cross-frequency coupling of theta (4–8 Hz), alpha, and gamma power revealed conflict-induced shifts in cortical network interactions: Congruent trials (relative to incongruent trials) had stronger coupling between frontal theta and stimulus-contrahemifield parietal alpha/gamma power, whereas incongruent trials had increased theta coupling between medial frontal and lateral frontal regions. These findings shed new light into the large-scale network dynamics of spatial conflict processing, and how those networks are shaped by oscillatory interactions.
Highlights
Cognitive control is crucial to goal-directed behavior, and includes our ability to adapt behavior according to conflicts, errors, or negative performance feedback [1]
The connectivity between stimulus-contralateral parietal gamma and ventrolateral prefrontal theta-band activity a few hundred milliseconds later may reflect the parietal cortex providing ‘‘bottom-up’’ information during congruent trials, which is suppressed during incongruent trials, perhaps to facilitate inhibition of the conflicting spatial location and its corresponding hand
It appears that when action conflicts are detected in medial frontal cortex (MFC), additional activation in the IFG is recruited in order to support the inhibition and override of incorrect action
Summary
Cognitive control is crucial to goal-directed behavior, and includes our ability to adapt behavior according to conflicts, errors, or negative performance feedback [1]. The medial frontal cortex (MFC) is believed to be the fulcrum of the cognitive control system, by signaling behaviorally relevant events, those with negative valence such as response conflict, errors, and negative feedback [1,2,3]. These signals are used to recruit other prefrontal structures to facilitate implementing behavioral adjustments [4,5], as well as directly implementing adjustments [6]. The objective of this experiment was to use EEG recordings and source space reconstruction to localize and characterize the network dynamics of cognitive control during spatial conflict processing
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