Within-Subject Correlation Analysis to Detect Functional Areas Associated With Response Inhibition

Abstract

Functional areas in fMRI studies are often detected by brain-behavior correlation, calculating across-subject correlation between the behavioral index and the brain activity related to a function of interest. Within-subject correlation analysis is also employed in a single subject level, which utilizes cognitive fluctuations in a shorter time period by correlating the behavioral index with the brain activity across trials. In the present study, the within-subject analysis was applied to the stop-signal task, a standard task to probe response inhibition, where efficiency of response inhibition can be evaluated by the stop-signal reaction time (SSRT). Since the SSRT is estimated, by definition, not in a trial basis but from pooled trials, the correlation across runs was calculated between the SSRT and the brain activity related to response inhibition. The within-subject correlation revealed negative correlations in the anterior cingulate cortex and the cerebellum. Moreover, the dissociation pattern was observed in the within-subject analysis when earlier vs. later parts of the runs were analyzed: negative correlation was dominant in earlier runs, whereas positive correlation was dominant in later runs. Regions of interest analyses revealed that the negative correlation in the anterior cingulate cortex, but not in the cerebellum, was dominant in earlier runs, suggesting multiple mechanisms associated with inhibitory processes that fluctuate on a run-by-run basis. These results indicate that the within-subject analysis compliments the across-subject analysis by highlighting different aspects of cognitive/affective processes related to response inhibition.

An Essential Role of the Intraparietal Sulcus in Response Inhibition Predicted by Parcellation-Based Network

“…Brain activation was observed in the IFC, the preSMA, the IPS, and the TPJ in the right hemisphere. The correlation of the brain activation with the SSRT was significant in the IFC (r ϭ Ϫ0.61, p ϭ 0.02), as reported previously (Aron et al, 2007;Yamasaki et al, 2018), but not in the preSMA (r ϭ Ϫ0.14, p ϭ 0.63), IPS (r ϭ 0.01, p ϭ 0.96), or TPJ (r ϭ Ϫ0.12, p ϭ 0.68) ( Fig. 2E,F).…”

“…One dot represents data from one subject. Aron et al, 2003;Jimura et al, 2014;Yamasaki et al, 2018) inside the scanner ( Fig. 2A).…”

A causal role of anterior prefrontal-putamen circuit for response inhibition revealed by transcranial ultrasound stimulation in humans

“…The leftright-rest cycle was repeated six times during the run. At Stage 2, the subjects performed a stop-signal task (Fujimoto et al, 2020(Fujimoto et al, , 2022Osada et al, 2019Osada et al, , 2021Suda et al, 2020;Yamasaki et al, 2018) (Figure 3A) in the fMRI experiment. The task procedures conformed to the guidelines described in Verbruggen et al (2019).…”

More subjects are required for ventrolateral than dorsolateral prefrontal TMS because of intolerability and potential drop-out

“…The scalp locations of the stimulation were measured and marked using the extended 10–20 system designed for electroencephalogram examination. Stimulations were administered to 11 electrode locations in the extended 10–20 system covering the prefrontal cortex of the right hemisphere, which implements response inhibition [56, 57, 62, 63] that we investigate using the present results (Fig 1B). In each block of the main experiments, stimulations were administered to each location in the predetermined order (Fp2, AF4, AF8, F8, F6, F4, F2, FC2, FC4, FC6 and FC8) for one-half of the subjects and in the reverse order for the other half of the subjects.…”