Inhibition of ongoing responses following frontal, nonfrontal, and basal ganglia lesions

The authors investigated the role of the frontal lobes and the basal ganglia in the inhibition of ongoing responses. Seventeen patients with frontal lesions (FG), 20 patients with lesions outside the frontal cortex (NFG), 8 patients with lesions to the basal ganglia (BG), and 20 orthopedic controls (OG) performed the stop-signal task that allows the estimation of the time it takes to inhibit an ongoing reaction (stop signal reaction time [SSRT]). The FG and the BG showed significantly longer SSRTs than the OG. Within the FG, patients with right and bilateral lesions showed significantly longer SSRTs than patients with left lesions. Results provide evidence for a role of the frontal lobes and the basal ganglia in the inhibition of ongoing responses.