Distinct temporal patterns of beta bursts differentiate successful and failed movement cancellation

Beta bursts, transient increases in beta-band activity in the brain, have been implicated in action stopping. However, it remains unclear how their temporal dynamics directly map onto the stop process. By analyzing human electroencephalography (EEG) recordings from the stop-signal task, we found that after the stop signal, frontal beta burst rates increased earlier when movement was successfully canceled than when it was not. Temporal decoding and low-dimensional neural trajectory analyses further corroborated this finding, showing that multi-channel beta burst patterns diverged between stop and go trials earlier for successful than failed stops. While averaging burst rates over a wide window from stop-signal presentation to stop-signal reaction time (SSRT) obscured these dynamics, narrowing window near SSRT uncovered clearer neural signatures of inhibitory control. Notably, traditional beta amplitudes did not capture the timing differences observed in beta bursts. Overall, beta burst dynamics suggest that stop process onset timings may underlie behavioral variability in movement cancellation.