Motor Interference, But Not Sensory Interference, Increases Midfrontal Theta Activity and Brain Synchronization during Reactive Control

Abstract

Cognitive control helps us to overcome task interference in challenging situations. Resolving conflicts because of interfering influences is believed to rely on midfrontal theta oscillations. However, different sources of interference necessitate different types of control. Attentional control is needed to suppress salient distractors. Motor control is needed to suppress goal-incompatible action impulses. While previous studies mostly studied the additive effects of attentional and motor conflicts, we independently manipulated the need for attentional control (via visual distractors) and motor control (via unexpected response deviations) in an EEG study with male and female humans. We sought to find out whether these different types of control rely on the same midfrontal oscillatory mechanisms. Motor conflicts, but not attentional conflicts, elicited increases in midfrontal theta power during conflict resolution. Independent of the type of conflict, theta power was predictive of motor slowing. Connectivity analysis via phase-based synchronization indicated a widespread increase interbrain connectivity for motor conflicts, but a midfrontal-to-posterior decrease in connectivity for attentional conflicts. For each condition, we found stronger midfrontal connectivity with the parietal region contralateral to, rather than ipsilateral to, the acting hand. Parietal lateralization in connectivity was strongest for motor conflicts. Previous studies suggested that midfrontal theta oscillations might represent a general control mechanism, which aids conflict resolution independent of the conflict domain. In contrast, our results show that oscillatory theta dynamics during reactive control mostly reflect motor-related adjustments.

An Action-Independent Role for Midfrontal Theta Activity Prior to Error Commission

“…It has been described as a driver of awareness, constantly receiving feedback information from interconnected networks ( Craig, 2009 ), as the ventral attentional network, which is functionally related to error awareness ( Klein et al, 2013 ). Thus, the link between a decreased theta activity and a greater probability of erroneous outcomes reported both in our data and in previous studies ( Cohen and Donner, 2013 ; Atchley et al, 2017 ; van Noordt et al, 2017 ; Kaiser and Schütz-Bosbach, 2021 ), might be explained by the reduced feedback from different networks to the anterior insula. It possibly highlights diminished attention and poor coordination of neural processing required for an efficient response ( White et al, 2013 ; Wallis et al, 2015 ; de Vries et al, 2020 ).…”

“…Recent studies have found evidence for distinct midfrontal theta inputs ( Töllner et al, 2017 ; Zuure et al, 2020 ), thus suggesting rather than a unitary neural mechanism of cognitive control ( Cavanagh et al, 2012 ; Cavanagh and Frank, 2014 ; Kaiser et al, 2019 ; Duprez et al, 2020 ), it might reflect different underlying neural processes depending on the task context. In line with this, Kaiser and Schütz-Bosbach (2021) found that pre-response theta is linked to synchronization of task-relevant brain areas and demonstrated domain-specific effects of theta power and connectivity. Their findings highlighted the need for further dissociation between general and domain-specific neural effects during different types of behavioral interactions as an important step for the understanding of the midfrontal theta role neural in cognitive control.…”

“…Moreover, contrarily to the classical theory of midfrontal theta as a general domain-independent mechanism for cognitive control ( Cavanagh et al, 2012 ; Cavanagh and Frank, 2014 ) domain-specific effects of theta power and connectivity, already during response preparation, have been demonstrated ( Zuure et al, 2020 ; Kaiser and Schütz-Bosbach, 2021 ). Our study adds to this discussion by testing for different task dependencies.…”

Effects of Pulsed-Wave Chromotherapy and Guided Relaxation on the Theta-Alpha Oscillation During Arrest Reaction

“…In this context, it has been recently proposed that theta coherence between the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) predicts the speed and the task performance and represents a crucial mechanism for a performing cognitive control (Myers et al, 2021). In the same way, numerous studies (Helfrich et al, 2019;Kaiser and Schütz-Bosbach, 2021) have suggested that the theta oscillation assumed a general control mechanism, exerting a top-down control during both sensorimotor interference and goal behavior. Gärtner et al (2014) demonstrated the existence of a close link between working memory performance and the theta oscillation (4-8 Hz) which were both reduced under stress conditions.…”

The Interplay Between Affective Processing and Sense of Agency During Action Regulation: A Review

“…Action regulation in this context refers to an adjustment of ongoing behavior in order to improve one's chances to successfully reach a goal. Successful action regulation commonly depends on voluntary exertion of cognitive control mechanisms to override goal-incompatible behavioral tendencies (van de Vijver et al, 2011 ; Gratton et al, 2017 ; Kaiser and Schütz-Bosbach, 2019 , 2021 ). Concerning the role of affective processing, we specifically focus here on the processing of positive and negative performance feedback during tasks which necessitate action regulation.…”