Comparison of Functional Connectivity in the Prefrontal Cortex during a Simple and an Emotional Go/No-Go Task in Female versus Male Groups: An fNIRS Study

Abstract

Inhibitory control is a cognitive process to suppress prepotent behavioral responses to stimuli. This study aimed to investigate prefrontal functional connectivity during a behavioral inhibition task and its correlation with the subject’s performance. Additionally, we identified connections that are specific to the Go/No-Go task. The experiment was performed on 42 normal, healthy adults who underwent a vanilla baseline and a simple and emotional Go/No-Go task. Cerebral hemodynamic responses were measured in the prefrontal cortex using a 16-channel near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) device. Functional connectivity was calculated from NIRS signals and correlated to the Go/No-Go performance. Strong connectivity was found in both the tasks in the right hemisphere, inter-hemispherically, and the left medial prefrontal cortex. Better performance (fewer errors, faster response) is associated with stronger prefrontal connectivity during the simple Go/No-Go in both sexes and the emotional Go/No-Go connectivity in males. However, females express a lower emotional Go/No-Go connectivity while performing better on the task. This study reports a complete prefrontal network during a simple and emotional Go/No-Go and its correlation with the subject’s performance in females and males. The results can be applied to examine behavioral inhibitory control deficits in population with neurodevelopmental disorders.

Synchronised interactions with a peer observer increase self-monitoring during response inhibition: An fNIRS study

“…Zhang et al, 2017). fNIRS studies have more consistently measured functional responses to task requiring inhibitory control, such as the Go/NoGo task used here, in right PFC (Ishii et al, 2017;Kaga et al, 2020;Monden et al, 2015;Nguyen et al, 2021). This difference may be related to the coarser spatial resolution of ~2-3 cm of fNIRS, compared to 3 mm in fMRI (Goense et al, 2016;Pinti et al, 2020).…”

“…Zhang et al, 2017). Studies investigating inhibitory control, i.e., responses suppression, report increased activity in prefrontal and inferior frontal brain regions, as well as the ACC, insulae and thalami (Aron et al, 2014;Cai et al, 2014;Chevrier et al, 2007;Gavazzi et al, 2021;Kaga et al, 2020;Nguyen et al, 2021;Schulz et al, 2009;R. Zhang et al, 2017).…”

“…In addition to exploring the dynamics of varying social relationships, future studies should further consider including measures relating to the change in perceived closeness and self-other overlap to verify whether these factors mediate the increased attentional mechanism and self-monitoring that appear to underpin the speed-accuracy trade-off reported here. Further insight into the network underpinnings of the speed-accuracy trade-off could also be gained from examining connectivity within frontal brain regions (Ayaz et al, 2022;Nguyen et al, 2021). The inclusion of additional brain regions in such connectivity analyses, including the temporal parietal junction, inferior parietal lobule, and premotor areas involved in maintenance of motor, and more generally, social alignment (Bardi et al, 2017;Shamay-Tsoory et al, 2019;Sowden & Catmur, 2015;Spengler et al, 2009Spengler et al, , 2010 would also be beneficial.…”

Neural and Kinematic Metrics of Handwriting in Neurotypical Adults

“…The sensor's layout resulted in 16 measurement locations (optodes) and a light penetration depth of approximately 1.2 cm [16], established by 10 light detectors and 4 light emitters that released light within the 730 -850 nm wavelength window and were separated by 2.5 cm. fNIRS is widely utilized in research labs to assess PFC activation during different motor and cognitive tasks such as Go/NoGo [41] or even moral judgment tasks [42].…”

Combining robust level extraction and unsupervised adaptive classification for high-accuracy fNIRS-BCI: An evidence on single-trial differentiation between mentally arithmetic- and singing-tasks

“…In studies where the ROI is the PFC region, fNIRS signal classification is essential to the development of the fNIRS-BCI system. The classification of fNIRS signals acquired in the PFC has applications in many fields, including volitional control such as motor imagery (MI) (Ma et al, 2021 ), the identification of different emotions (Nguyen et al, 2021 ), the classification of mental workload levels (Lim et al, 2020 ), and the discrimination of intentional activity of the brain such as different mental tasks (Power et al, 2012 ; Chen et al, 2020 ). Most studies of fNIRS-BCI have focused on MI, affective responses, and mental workload, and less on mental task recognition.…”