Component-specific self-regulation of slow cortical potentials and its effect on behavior: an exploratory study

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Psychology
• Psychophysiology

Background:

• The contingent negative variation (CNV) is a slow negative cortical potential reflecting preparation for an impending stimulus.
• The CNV comprises distinct components, including the initial (iCNV) and terminal (tCNV) phases, potentially representing different processing stages.
• Understanding the self-regulation of these components is crucial for elucidating their functional significance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the possibility of component-specific self-regulation of the CNV in healthy volunteers.
• To explore the functional significance of the iCNV and tCNV through self-regulation.
• To identify strategies associated with the regulation of different CNV components.

Main Methods:

• Twenty-four healthy participants underwent four training sessions.
• Participants attempted to self-regulate specific components of the CNV.
• Behavioral strategies employed during regulation were recorded and analyzed.

Main Results:

• Participants successfully achieved component-specific control over the CNV within four sessions.
• Self-regulation of the tCNV was significantly more successful than that of the iCNV.
• iCNV regulation involved strategies focused on the pre-stimulus interval or warning stimulus (S1), whereas tCNV regulation involved activities around the imperative stimulus (S2).

Conclusions:

• Component-specific regulation of the CNV is feasible and can be utilized to study its psychophysiological meaning.
• The findings suggest that the iCNV and tCNV represent distinct stages of information processing.
• A hypothesis is proposed: iCNV generation relates to cortical pre-activation, and tCNV generation relates to phasic performance-directed activation.