Low and high stimulation frequencies differentially affect automated response selection in the superior parietal cortex – implications for somatosensory area processes

Abstract

Response inhibition as a central facet of executive functioning is no homogeneous construct.Interference inhibition constitutes a subcomponent of response inhibition and refers to inhibitory control over responses that are automatically triggered by irrelevant stimulus dimensions as measured by the Simon task. While there is evidence that the area-specific modulation of tactile information affects the act of action withholding, effects in the context of interference inhibition remain elusive. We conducted a tactile version of the Simon task with stimuli designed to be predominantly processed in the primary (40 Hz) or secondary (150 Hz) somatosensory cortex. On the basis of EEG recordings, we performed signal decomposition and source localization. Behavioral results reveal that response execution is more efficient when sensory information is mainly processed via SII, compared to SI sensory areas during non-conflicting trials. When accounting for intermingled coding levels by temporally decomposing EEG data, the results show that experimental variations depending on sensory areaspecific processing differences specifically affect motor and not sensory processes. Modulations of motor-related processes are linked to activation differences in the superior parietal cortex (BA7). It is concluded that the Sii cortical area supporting cognitive preprocessing of tactile input fosters automatic tactile information processing by facilitating stimulus-response mapping in posterior parietal regions. open Scientific RepoRtS | (2020) 10:3954 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61025-y www.nature.com/scientificreports www.nature.com/scientificreports/ assignment, one stimulus at once is presented either on the left or the right 1,7,8 . In other words, stimulus presentation is lateralized, whereas a non-spatial stimulus feature requires a lateralized response 9 . Although stimulus location is not relevant, it still interferes with the correct response, which was assigned to the stimulus at the beginning of the experiment 1 . Correspondence between the response location associated with the task-relevant stimulus feature and the task-irrelevant location of the presented stimulus (i.e. congruent trials) results in better performance than non-correspondence (i.e. incongruent trials) 8,10 . Also in tactile versions of the Simon task using low and high intensities 11,12 or continuous and pulsed stimulation 13 as relevant stimulus features, this "Simon effect" can be found 8 . Processes occurring in the Simon task are often described by dual-process models 8,13-15 , which assume an occurrence of automatic and controlled processes 10,16,17 . According to these models, an "unconditionally automatic" (task-irrelevant) process, also called "direct route", is triggered by stimuli in a way that facilitates responses directly corresponding to their location. A second, rather controlled process, running in parallel, constitutes deliberate/controlled response selection based on conditions defined by the task-relevant stimulus-response assignment ...

Perception-action integration in young age—A cross-sectional EEG study

“…At the source level, the correlations both in the C- and in the R-cluster were mirrored by activity modulations in the superior parietal cortex (BA7) which has previously been linked to event coding in numerous studies ( Chmielewski et al, 2019 ; Friedrich and Beste, 2020 ; Gottlieb, 2007 ; Kleimaker et al, 2020 ; Le et al, 2017 ; Mückschel et al, 2017 ; Petruo et al, 2016 ; Takacs et al, 2020b ). In some studies, binding effects were reflected by the P3 component or the C-cluster and were related to the inferior parietal cortex (BA40) ( Kleimaker et al, 2020 ; Petruo et al, 2016 ; Takacs et al, 2020b ).…”

“…Because we were interested in event-file coding processes and not in mere response-related processes, the R-cluster activity was measured in the P3 time interval after stimulus presentation, just as the C-cluster. The different results in both clusters show that the interaction effect in the R-cluster might be attributed to processes that are independent of the C-cluster and rather reflect motor control processes ( Chmielewski et al, 2019 ; Friedrich and Beste, 2020 ; Ouyang et al, 2015 , 2011 ). The S-cluster did not reveal any interaction effects.…”

“…This requires some form of inhibitory control. Indeed, multiple research findings suggest that superior parietal inhibitory mechanisms contribute in the selection of motor responses ( Bernier et al, 2012 ; Cisek and Kalaska, 2002 ; Jaffard et al, 2008 ; Sulpizio et al, 2017 ) and recent findings suggest that R-cluster modulations associated with superior parietal activity may reflect inhibitory control of motor response options ( Chmielewski et al, 2019 ; Friedrich and Beste, 2020 ). In the current study, correlations of age and R-cluster data were evident in the time period between ∼400 and 450 ms.…”

Suggested visual blockade during hypnosis: Top-down modulation of stimulus processing in a visual oddball task

“…Thus top-down attentional signals from SPL could bias the processing in low-level visual areas towards task-relevant stimuli, with attentionrelated effects having been reported to cross multiple visual areas from V2 through V4 within the ventral visual stream [76]. There is also evidence that SPL is involved in linking relevant sensory information to actions for a given task [74,[77][78][79], also referred to as stimulusresponse mapping. Accordingly, one parsimonious view would suggest that regions in the parietal cortex (SPL) may bias the information processing in lower visual areas (OFG) and additionally relay the presence of a target to frontal executive monitoring/control structures, which then initiate counting in left frontal areas [80][81][82].…”

Neurophysiological correlates of perception–action binding in the somatosensory system

“…Moreover, the visual and somatosensory domains seem to differ regarding their susceptibility to interference during response inhibition 20 . Sensory lateral inhibition processes, as well as differences in area-specific processing and developmental factors have been found to modify executive functioning based on somatosensory input 21 – 24 . Furthermore, different stimulus magnitudes have been demonstrated to impact action control presumably due to modulations in the strength of event file binding 25 .…”