Subthalamic nucleus involvement in executive functions with increased cognitive load: a subthalamic nucleus and anterior cingulate cortex depth recording study

Abstract

We studied the appearance of broadband oscillatory changes (ranging 2-45 Hz) induced by a cognitive task with two levels of complexity. The event-related de/synchronizations (ERD/S) in the subthalamic nucleus (STN) and in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) were evaluated in an executive function test. Four epilepsy surgery candidates with intracerebral electrodes implanted in the ACC and three Parkinson's disease patients with externalized deep brain stimulation electrodes implanted in the STN participated in the study. A Flanker test (FT) with visual stimuli (arrows) was performed. Subjects reacted to four types of stimuli presented on the monitor by pushing the right or left button: congruent arrows to the right or left side (simple task) and incongruent arrows to the right or left side (more difficult complex task). We explored the activation of STN and the activation of the ACC while processing the FT. Both conditions, i.e. congruent and incongruent, induced oscillatory changes in the ACC and also STN with significantly higher activation during incongruent trial. At variance with the ACC, in the STN not only the ERD beta but also the ERD alpha activity was significantly more activated by the incongruent condition. In line with our earlier studies, the STN appears to be involved in activities linked with increased cognitive load. The specificity and complexity of task-related activation of the STN might indicate the involvement of the STN in processes controlling human behaviour, e.g. in the selection and inhibition of competing alternatives.

Electrophysiological dynamics reveal distinct processing of stimulus‐stimulus and stimulus‐response conflicts

“…The enhanced alpha power has been observed when people actively restrained their attention to the distracters in order to focus on the targets (Ward, ). And the beta band activity has been linked with increased cognitive load (Aulická et al., ), task‐specific vigilance (Mann, Sterman, & Kaiser, ), as well as attentional control and response inhibition (Fan et al., ; Putman, van Peer, Maimari, & van der Werff, ). Therefore, the oscillation of the alpha and beta bands in the S‐S conflicts might reflect top‐down inhibition on dominant responses.…”

Brain oscillations in cognitive control: A cross-sectional study with a spatial stroop task

“…Results from another study using intracranial recording revealed greater desynchronization in beta and alpha activity in medial prefrontal cortex for the incongruent condition (Aulická et al, 2014).…”

Direct comparison of oscillatory activity in the motor system of Parkinson’s disease and dystonia: A review of the literature and meta-analysis

“…However, unlike animal research, studies that investigate local oscillatory activity in PD or dystonia patients usually cannot be contrasted with healthy human subjects, due to the invasive nature of (sub)cortical electrode placements. Occasional invasive recordings carried out on patients with functional movement disorders (Kobayashi et al, 2011;Ramos et al, 2015) or epilepsy (Aulicka et al, 2014;Kondylis et al, 2016) have demonstrated that certain neurophysiological features, previously only demonstrated on PD or dystonia, are not restricted to such organic movement disorders. Recently, prominent beta oscillations were described in the dorso-lateral STN of patients with obsessive compulsive disorder (Wojtecki et al, 2017;Rappel et al, 2018).…”