Cortical and subcortical functional specificity associated with response inhibition

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Neuroimaging

Background:

• Understanding the neural basis of motor control is crucial for explaining voluntary action.
• Debate exists whether response inhibition relies on a specialized inhibitory mechanism or general action updating systems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the neural specificity of motor response inhibition versus general action updating.
• To explore the role of the anterior right inferior frontal gyrus (aR_IFG) in inhibitory control.
• To examine fronto-subcortical pathways involved in response inhibition and execution.

Main Methods:

• A pre-registered study using a context-cueing paradigm.
• Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess brain activity during inhibitory and non-inhibitory action updating tasks.
• Novel contrast methods for analyzing fronto-subcortical activity.

Main Results:

• Common cortical activity was observed across multiple forms of action updating.
• Specific activation for response inhibition was localized to the anterior right inferior frontal gyrus.
• Exploratory analyses revealed right-hemisphere subcortical involvement in response inhibition, distinct from left-hemisphere activity associated with right-hand response execution.

Conclusions:

• Motor response inhibition involves both common and distinct neural correlates within the prefrontal cortex.
• Findings support models of subcortical pathways in inhibitory control.
• Demonstrated lateralization of neural activity for response inhibition and execution provides insights into motor control mechanisms.