Error-related brain activation during a Go/NoGo response inhibition task

Abstract

Inhibitory control and performance monitoring are critical executive functions of the human brain. Lesion and imaging studies have shown that the inferior frontal cortex plays an important role in inhibition of inappropriate response. In contrast, specific brain areas involved in error processing and their relation to those implicated in inhibitory control processes are unknown. In this study, we used a random effects model to investigate error-related brain activity associated with failure to inhibit response during a Go/NoGo task. Error-related brain activation was observed in the rostral aspect of the right anterior cingulate (BA 24/32) and adjoining medial prefrontal cortex, the left and right insular cortex and adjoining frontal operculum (BA 47) and left precuneus/posterior cingulate (BA 7/31/29). Brain activation related to response inhibition and competition was observed bilaterally in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA 9/46), pars triangularis region of the inferior frontal cortex (BA 45/47), premotor cortex (BA 6), inferior parietal lobule (BA 39), lingual gyrus and the caudate, as well as in the right dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (BA 24). These findings provide evidence for a distributed error processing system in the human brain that overlaps partially, but not completely, with brain regions involved in response inhibition and competition. In particular, the rostal anterior cingulate and posterior cingulate/precuneus as well as the left and right anterior insular cortex were activated only during error processing, but not during response competition, inhibition, selection, or execution. Our results also suggest that the brain regions involved in the error processing system overlap with brain areas implicated in the formulation and execution of articulatory plans.

Beyond common resources: the cortical basis for resolving task interference

“…The RT during error trials was compared with Go RT, indicating different results at the different load sizes. At the one-item load, error RT was significantly faster than Go RT (see Table 1), t(14) = 4.04, P < 0.001, typical of previous studies using one-item Go/No-go tasks (Menon et al, 2001). At the three-item load, error RT and Go RT were not significantly different, and at the five-item load, error RT was significantly slower than Go RT, t(14) = À2.62, P < 0.05.…”

Schizophrenia Subjects Show Intact Success-Related Neural Activation but Impaired Uncertainty Processing during Decision-Making

“…Bilateral inferior frontal gyrus (BA 44/45) and middle frontal gyrus (BA 9/46), ventromedial prefrontal cortex (BA 10/11), and anterior cingulate (BA 32) showed error-rate-related activation changes. These areas have been implicated in spatial attentional processes (Mesulam, 1999), conflict and error monitoring (Carter et al, 2000;Botvinick et al, 1999), inhibitory processes (Menon et al, 2001;Liddle et al, 2001;Rubia et al, 2001b), and control of eye movements (Luna et al, 1998). Thus, both groups allocate similar error-rate-related processing resources during this decision-making task.…”

“…Specifically, attentional processes that involve sustained, and possibly selective, attention (Coull et al, 1996), switching from task-relevant local to global targets (Fink et al, 1996;Lamb et al, 1989), voluntary attentional control (Hopfinger et al, 2000), and the distinction between taskirrelevant and task-relevant events (Downar et al, 2001;Kiehl et al, 2001;McCarthy et al, 1997) support the view that this area is critical for the extraction and selection of task-relevant information. Moreover, this area has been implicated in inhibitory control in a number of different paradigms (Garavan et al, 1999;Menon et al, 2001;Rubia et al, 2001b;Steel et al, 2001;Doricchi et al, 1997), that is, the allocation of resources to a response that has to compete with a highly overlearned and potentially habitual behavior. Several studies using decision-making paradigms have implicated the right posterior parietal cortex in autonomic arousal processes (Tranel and Damasio, 1994;Critchley et al, 2000), risk-taking decision-making (Ernst et al, 2002), and guessing (Elliott et al, 1999).…”

Common regions of dorsal anterior cingulate and prefrontal–parietal cortices provide attentional control of distracters varying in emotionality and visibility

“…In particular, it has been argued that attentional control of emotional distracters recruits rACC (Bishop et al, 2004;Etkin et al, 2006;Shin et al, 2001;Vuilleumier et al, 2001;Whalen et al, 1998). In contrast, attentional control of nonemotional distracters is thought to implicate dACC Carter et al 1995Carter et al , 2000Durston et al, 2002;MacDonald et al 2000;Menon et al, 2001). However, some studies report dACC rather than rACC activity in response to emotional distracters Davis et al, 2005;Haas et al, 2006;Mitchell et al, 2007).…”