Anterior cingulate activity during error and autonomic response

Abstract

The contribution of anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) to human cognition remains unclear. The rostral (rACC) and dorsal (dACC) ACC cortex are implicated in tasks that require increased response control due to emotional and cognitive interference, respectively. However, both rACC and dACC are activated by conditions that induce changes in visceral arousal, suggesting that ACC supports a generation of integrated bodily responses. To clarify the relationship between purely cognitive and psychophysiological accounts of ACC function, we scanned 15 subjects using functional magnetic resonance imaging while they performed numerical versions of the Stroop task. To index autonomic arousal, we simultaneously measured pupil diameter. Performance errors accounted for most of the variance in a pupil-derived measure of evoked autonomic arousal. In analysis of the functional imaging data, activity within a region spanning rACC and dACC predicted trial-by-trial variation in autonomic response magnitude and was enhanced during error trials, shown using conjunction analyses. Activity within other loci within rACC predicted evoked autonomic arousal and showed sensitivity to errors but did not meet criteria for both. These data highlight the role of ACC in psychophysiological aspects of error processing and suggest that an interface exists within ACC between cognitive and biobehavioral systems in the service of response adaptation.

Dopamine Modulates Reward System Activity During Subconscious Processing of Sexual Stimuli

“…The dACC participates in motivation ('wanting') through mobilization of resources, and initiation of goal-directed behaviors, through its projections to the motor area, and the periaquaductal gray matter, the latter also known for generating sexual behaviors (Assadi et al, 2009;Lonstein and Stern, 1998). dACC is associated with autonomic modulation of heart rate and pupil dilation (Critchley et al, 2003(Critchley et al, , 2005. Furthermore, dACC abnormalities have been found in obsessive-compulsive disorders, schizophrenia, and addiction (Yucel et al, 2007a, b, c).…”

Stimulus–outcome learnability differentially activates anterior cingulate and hippocampus at feedback processing

“…The hippocampus and ACC are both critical regions for learning and memory. In fMRI, hippocampal activity is implicated in declarative memory and association learning (e.g., Davachi 2006), whereas ACC activity is implicated in error and conflict monitoring of stimulus-response outcomes (e.g., Holroyd and Coles 2002;Rushworth et al 2004Rushworth et al , 2007Critchley et al 2005;Sarter et al 2006). In this sense, the ACC is not thought of as a memory system itself that represents particular associations, but rather it is thought of as performing evaluation and/or control functions that are an integral part of learning.…”

Social influence and the brain: persuasion, susceptibility to influence and retransmission

“…The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) is one key brain region implicated in conflict monitoring and detection [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17], and early studies of influence demonstrated that updating behavior in response to misalignment with the group is associated with increased activity within this region [6,18], as well as in anterior insula (AI), a region hypothesized to encode the discomfort of being misaligned with the group [6,7]. To further test the causal role of brain regions hypothesized to be involved in conflict monitoring and detection in social influence, researchers used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to downregulate the posterior medial frontal cortex (pMFC), overlapping with dACC, during a social influence task.…”