Evidence for a causal role of superior frontal cortex theta oscillations during the processing of joint subliminal and conscious conflicts

Giller, Franziska; Bensmann, Wiebke; Mückschel, Moritz; Stock, Ann‐Kathrin; Beste, Christian

doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2020.08.003

Cited by 18 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…Our work here is in line with past studies from our group and others showing that PD patients have attenuated midfrontal rhythms between 1-8 Hz (Cavanagh et al, 2018;K.-H. Chen et al, 2016;Giller et al, 2020;Singh et al, 2018Singh et al, , 2021Solís-Vivanco et al, 2018). This line of work includes data from the Simon reaction-time task (Singh et al, 2018), interval timing tasks (Singh et al, 2021), and working memory manipulations (Itthipuripat et al, 2013).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Novelty-induced frontal-STN networks in Parkinson’s disease

Cole

Espinoza

Singh

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Evaluating and responding to new information requires cognitive control. Here, we studied novelty-response mechanisms in Parkinson's disease (PD). In PD patient-volunteers, we recorded from cortical circuits with scalp-based electroencephalography (EEG) and from subcortical circuits using intraoperative neurophysiology during surgeries for implantation of deep-brain stimulation (DBS) electrodes. We report three major results. First, novel auditory stimuli triggered midfrontal ~4-Hz rhythms, which were attenuated in PD patients but were not linked with cognitive function or novelty-associated slowing. Second, 32% of subthalamic nucleus (STN) neurons were response-modulated; nearly all (94%) of these were also modulated by novel stimuli. Finally, response-modulated STN neurons were coherent with midfrontal low-frequency activity. These findings link scalp-based measurements of neural activity with neuronal activity in the STN. Our results provide insight into midfrontal cognitive control mechanisms and how hyperdirect circuits evaluate new information.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Novelty-induced frontal-STN networks in Parkinson’s disease

Cole

Espinoza

Singh

et al. 2021

Preprint

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“…However, concerning these modulatory effects, it has to be considered that different aspects of information are coded in this activity ( Mückschel et al, 2017b ). During conflict monitoring, stimulus-related information and information detailing the response selection are concomitantly coded ( Folstein and Petten, 2008 ), as revealed by studies applying a temporal EEG signal decomposition method: residue iteration decomposition (RIDE) ( Dippel et al, 2017 ; Mückschel et al, 2017b ; Adelhöfer et al, 2019a , 2019b ; Giller et al, 2020 ). The RIDE method decomposes the EEG into 3 clusters of dissociable functional relevance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Auricular Transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation Diminishes Alpha-Band–Related Inhibitory Gating Processes During Conflict Monitoring in Frontal Cortices

Konjusha

Colzato

Mückschel

et al. 2022

International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology

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Background Pursuing goals is compromised when being confronted with interfering information. In such situations conflict monitoring is important. Theoretical considerations on the neurobiology of response selection and control suggest that auricular transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (atVNS) should modulate conflict monitoring. However, the neurophysiological-functional neuroanatomical underpinnings are still not understood. Methods AtVNS was applied in a randomized crossover study design (N=45). During atVNS or sham stimulation, conflict monitoring was assessed using a Flanker task. EEG data were recorded and analyzed with focus on theta and alpha band activity. Beamforming was applied to examine functional neuroanatomical correlates of atVNS-induced EEG modulations. Moreover, temporal EEG signal decomposition was applied to examine different coding level in alpha and theta band activity. Results AtVNS compromised conflict monitoring processes, when atVNS was applied at the second appointment in the crossover study design. On a neurophysiological level, atVNS exerted specific effects since only alpha-band activity was modulated. Alpha-band activity was lower in middle and superior prefrontal regions during atVNS stimulation and thus lower when there was also a decline in task performance. The same direction of alpha-band modulations was evident in fractions of the alpha-band activity coding stimulus-related processes, stimulus-response translation processes, and motor response-related processes. Conclusions The combination of prior task experience and atVNS compromises conflict monitoring processes. This is likely due to reduction of alpha-band associated inhibitory gating process on interfering information in frontal cortices. Future research shall pay considerable attention to boundary conditions affecting the direction of atVNS effects.

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“…Related to the current findings, the entire pattern of results suggest that atDCS modulation of S-R conflicts differs between functional neuroanatomical regions in the prefrontal cortex. The obtained data may be regarded to be at odds with several recent tACS studies revealing performance increases upon theta-band stimulation over comparable stimulation sites during S-R conflicts (van Driel et al 2015;Fusco et al 2018;Lehr et al 2019;Giller et al 2020). However, it needs to be noted that tACS entrains oscillatory activity (Herrmann et al 2016) while tDCS modulates different mechanisms based on the membrane potential (Stagg and Nitsche 2011;Filmer et al 2014;Woods et al 2016;Reinhart et al 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 65%

Anodal tDCS modulates specific processing codes during conflict monitoring associated with superior and middle frontal cortices

2021

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Conflict monitoring processes are central for cognitive control. Neurophysiological correlates of conflict monitoring (i.e. the N2 ERP) likely represent a mixture of different cognitive processes. Based on theoretical considerations, we hypothesized that effects of anodal tDCS (atDCS) in superior frontal areas affect specific subprocesses in neurophysiological activity during conflict monitoring. To investigate this, young healthy adults performed a Simon task while EEG was recorded. atDCS and sham tDCS were applied in a single-blind, cross-over study design. Using temporal signal decomposition in combination with source localization analyses, we demonstrated that atDCS effects on cognitive control are very specific: the detrimental effect of atDCS on response speed was largest in case of response conflicts. This however only showed in aspects of the decomposed N2 component, reflecting stimulus–response translation processes. In contrast to this, stimulus-related aspects of the N2 as well as purely response-related processes were not modulated by atDCS. EEG source localization analyses revealed that the effect was likely driven by activity modulations in the superior frontal areas, including the supplementary motor cortex (BA6), as well as middle frontal (BA9) and medial frontal areas (BA32). atDCS did not modulate effects of proprioceptive information on hand position, even though this aspect is known to be processed within the same brain areas. Physiological effects of atDCS likely modulate specific aspects of information processing during cognitive control.

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Evidence for a causal role of superior frontal cortex theta oscillations during the processing of joint subliminal and conscious conflicts

Cited by 18 publications

References 61 publications

Novelty-induced frontal-STN networks in Parkinson’s disease

Novelty-induced frontal-STN networks in Parkinson’s disease

Auricular Transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation Diminishes Alpha-Band–Related Inhibitory Gating Processes During Conflict Monitoring in Frontal Cortices

Anodal tDCS modulates specific processing codes during conflict monitoring associated with superior and middle frontal cortices

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