tDCS over the inferior frontal gyri and visual cortices did not improve response inhibition

Abstract

The ability to cancel an already initiated response is central to flexible behavior. While several different behavioral and neural markers have been suggested to quantify the latency of the stopping process, it remains unclear if they quantify the stopping process itself, or other supporting mechanisms such as visual and/or attentional processing. the present study sought to investigate the contributions of inhibitory and sensory processes to stopping latency markers by combining transcranial direct current stimulation (tDcS), electroencephalography (eeG) and electromyography (eMG) recordings in a withinparticipant design. Active and sham tDcS were applied over the inferior frontal gyri (ifG) and visual cortices (VC), combined with both online and offline EEG and EMG recordings. We found evidence that neither of the active tDCS condition affected stopping latencies relative to sham stimulation. Our results challenge previous findings suggesting that anodal tDCS over the IFG can reduce stopping latency and demonstrates the necessity of adequate control conditions in tDcS research. Additionally, while the different putative markers of stopping latency showed generally positive correlations with each other, they also showed substantial variation in the estimated latency of inhibition, making it unlikely that they all capture the same construct exclusively.

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

“…Inhibitory control processes play an important role in the resolution of response conflicts (Stürmer et al 2000 ; Cisek and Kalaska 2005 ; Taylor et al 2007 ; Verleger et al 2009 ; Tandonnet et al 2011 ; Ocklenburg et al 2011 ; Klein et al 2014 ). It may, therefore, be speculated that the observed specificity of atDCS effects is due to the involvement of inhibitory control processes (but see (Thunberg et al 2020 ) reporting no effects of frontal tDCS on inhibitory control).…”

Partial response electromyography as a marker of action stopping

“…McGarry and Franks (1997) designed a stop signal task with untypically short SSDs, and found that, based on the shape of the prEMG rising slope, trials could be divided into trials with early and late stopping mechanisms (see Box 1 about interrupted response for details). Further, electroencephalography studies have found that prEMG trials show decreased lateralized readiness potentials and increased frontal negativities (De Jong et al, 1990;van Boxtel et al, 2001). Increased frontal negativities have also been related to awareness of the prEMG in response conflict tasks (Ficarella et al, 2019).…”

“…Several further studies attempted to interpret the prEMG within the context of the horse race model. For instance, trials with prEMG seem to roughly correspond to the middle part of the go-RT distribution, indicating that these trials have a relatively fast go process that nonetheless is slow enough to be suppressed by the stop process (De Jong et al, 1990;van Boxtel et al, 2001). Furthermore, the occurrence of the prEMG is dependent on the SSD, as prEMG frequency declines and its amplitude increases with increasing SSD (Coxon et al, 2006).…”

“…Earlier work identified that muscle activity can be stopped at any time before the movement is completed, and additionally focused on the time-courses of different electrophysiological measures, i.e. EMG, electrocardiography (ECG), and electroencephalography (EEG; De Jong et al, 1990;Jennings et al, 1992;van Boxtel et al, 2001). These studies identified the motor cortex as a site of inhibition, yet they also showed that the peripheral nervous system is affected as well.…”

Subthalamic Nucleus Subregion Stimulation Modulates Inhibitory Control

“…2016 ) (but see Schall and Godlove 2012 ; Erika-Florence et al. 2014 ; Thunberg et al. 2020 for counterperspectives on cortical areas involved in stopping control).…”