Inefficient response inhibition in individuals with mild cognitive impairment

Variation in working memory capacity and cognitive control: Goal maintenance and microadjustments of control

“…When suppression is weak, participants will be more influenced by the competing response, and this effect will occur more for slower responses. Using delta plots, several studies have argued that participants who differ in the efficiency of inhibitory control differ in the slowest RTs, with larger conflict effects in those RTs (e.g., Wylie et al, 2007). Thus, the current results (especially the delta plots for the Stroop and flanker tasks) are very much in line with the inhibitory control view.…”

“…Such a shift in the distribution with no difference in the tails of the distributions should lead to a relatively flat delta plot. However, other work has suggested that differences between congruent and incongruent trials are due to both a shift in the distribution and a lengthening of the tail of the incongruent RT distribution (e.g., Blanco & Alvarez, 1994), leading to a linearly increasing delta plot (e.g., Wylie, Ridderinkhof, Eckerle, & Manning, 2007). The fact that high-WMC individuals demonstrate a flat delta plot whereas low-WMC individuals demonstrate an increasing delta plot suggests that prior discrepancies in the literature may be the result of differences in participant characteristics whereby some studies have primarily examined participants high in cognitive control abilities (high in WMC), whereas other studies either have examined a wider range of cognitive control abilities, or have primarily examined participants low in cognitive control abilities (low WMC).…”

Conflict monitoring in early frontotemporal dementia

“…[11][12][13]17 Patients with diseases associated with impairment in these brain regions (e.g., Parkinson disease, MCI, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder) show larger flanker interference effects as compared with healthy controls. [33][34][35][36][37] The strong activation of medial frontal lobes, and specifically the rostral anterior cingulate, during response conflict trials of the flanker task in neurologic healthy controls suggests that the observed findings of impairment in conflict monitoring in patients with bvFTD as compared with normal controls in the current study are a result of dysfunction in this brain area and related anterior cingulate circuit. Research has illustrated the intrinsic corticocortical connections within the orbital and medial prefrontal cortex.…”

“…32 A study examining the flanker interference effect as a function of the entire reaction time distribution in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) as compared with normal controls found evidence that inefficient inhibition, rather than greater activation of the response induced by incongruent flankers, accounted for the enhanced interference effect in MCI patients. 33 Accordingly, the greater interference effect found in patients with bvFTD as compared with normal controls is likely a function of inefficient response inhibition. Patients with early bvFTD may have subtle impairments in inhibiting their attention or response to irrelevant stimuli.…”

Neural Mechanisms, Temporal Dynamics, and Individual Differences in Interference Control

“…Thus, the slope of the slowest portion of the delta plot may serve as a parametric index sensitive to individual differences in selective response inhibition. Using this index, such individual differences have been examined in children across different age groups (Bub, Masson, & Lalonde, 2006), children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (Ridderinkhof et al, 2005), and individuals with mild cognitive impairment (Wylie, Ridderinkhof, Eckerle, & Manning, 2007).…”