The What, the When, and the Whether of Intentional Action in the Brain: A Meta-Analytical Review

Abstract

In their attempt to define discrete subcomponents of intentionality, Brass and Haggard (2008) proposed their What, When, and Whether model (www-model) which postulates that the content, the timing and the possibility of generating an action can be partially independent both at the cognitive level and at the level of their neural implementation. The original proposal was based on a limited number of studies, which were reviewed with a discursive approach. To assess whether the model stands in front of the more recently published data, we performed a systematic review of the literature with a meta-analytic method based on a hierarchical clustering (HC) algorithm. We identified 15 PET/fMRI studies well-suited for this quest. HC revealed the existence of a rostro-caudal gradient within the medial prefrontal cortex, with the more anterior regions (the anterior cingulum) involved in more abstract decisions of whether to execute an action and the more posterior ones (the middle cingulum or the SMA) recruited in specifying the content and the timing components of actions. However, in contrast with the original www-model, this dissociation involves also brain regions well outside the median wall of the frontal lobe, in a component specific manner: the supramarginal gyrus for the what component, the pallidum and the thalamus for the when component, the putamen and the insula for the whether component. We then calculated co-activation maps on the three component-specific www clusters of the medial wall of the frontal/limbic lobe: to this end, we used the activation likelihood approach that we applied on the imaging studies on action contained in the BrainMap.org database. This analysis confirmed the main findings of the HC analyses. However, the BrainMap.org data analyses also showed that the aforementioned segregations are generated by paradigms in which subjects act in response to conditional stimuli rather than while driven by their own intentions. We conclude that the available data confirm that the neural underpinnings of intentionality can be fractionated in discrete components that are partially independent. We also suggest that intentionality manifests itself in discrete components through the boosting of general purpose action-related regions specialized for different aspects of action selection and inhibition.

Response Hand and Motor Set Differentially Modulate the Connectivity of Brain Pathways During Simple Uni-manual Motor Behavior

“…Moreover, the synchrony between the SMA and primary cortex is associated with finger movements that underpin complex rhythmic patterns (Adhikari, Epstein, & Dhamala, 2017). Finally, meta analyses also implicate the thalamus as crucial for executive control mechanisms related to motor responding (Ardila, Bernal, & Rosselli, 2017), and all of these regions in mediating motor responses to conditional stimuli (Zapparoli, Seghezzi, & Paulesu, 2017). …”

Can Neuroscience Assist Us in Constructing Better Patterns of Economic Decision-Making?

“…Brain plasticity enables group action and acquirements, fine-tuning decision making consistent with local circumstances (Zapparoli et al, 2017): the brain is strengthened to integrate heterogeneous sets of information simultaneously, separating out conducts that turn out to generate typically the uppermost fitness gain. At the next level, prosocial decisions are induced by the expectation of an economically advantageous or emotionally gratifying reward.…”

The Cognitive Information Effect of Televised News

“…Television is reliant upon more wide-ranging cultural mechanisms for its implications, approaches, and interpretations: it is transient, discontinuous, explicit, accurate, and intense in mode, and its messages are achieved by disparities and by the association of apparently irreconcilable symbols and its argumentation is narrated and graphic. The television medium displays an incessant flow of images that are thoroughly recognizable in configuration and form (Hellman and Majamäki, 2016; Rogers, 2016; Zapparoli et al, 2017), employs codes which are carefully associated with those by which individuals observe reality, seems to be the expected manner of perceiving the world, and exhibits the viewers’ shared selves. Television is a social construct, and its performance is the outcome of human preference, cultural judgments, and social constraints.…”

“…News images are present in an abundance of possible exposures, which thrust in and around the messages of news reporting, between the current and aimed features of broadcasting, and between the latter and the greater mediated setting (broadcasting has built up throughout emerging platforms of technological substitute, and reciprocity of messages are now easier between broadcasting and the other information setting). The news may stimulate likelihood, creativity, and responsiveness (Hellman and Majamäki, 2016; Rogers, 2016; Zapparoli et al, 2017) as a manner of reacting to the world. Granted broadcasting’s prominence as a main organization of documentation and recollection, news images justify interest on their own conditions.…”