Neural mechanisms of domain-general inhibitory control.

Inhibitory control is a fundamental mechanism underlying flexible behavior and features in theories across many areas of cognitive and psychological science. However, whereas many theories implicitly or explicitly assume that inhibitory control is a domain-general process, the vast majority of neuroscientific work has hitherto focused on individual domains, such as motor, mnemonic, or attentional inhibition. Here, we attempt to close this gap by highlighting recent work that demonstrates shared neuroanatomical and neurophysiological signatures of inhibitory control across domains.

Lexical inhibition after semantic violations recruits a domain-general inhibitory control mechanism.

Language processing is incremental. As language signals-for example, words in a sentence-unfold, humans predict and activate likely upcoming input to facilitate comprehension. Prediction not only accelerates understanding but also prompts reassessment in the case of prediction error, fostering learning and refining comprehension skills.

Examining motor evidence for the pause-then-cancel model of action-stopping: insights from motor system physiology.

Stopping initiated actions is fundamental to adaptive behavior. Longstanding, single-process accounts of action-stopping have been challenged by recent, two-process, "pause-then-cancel" models. These models propose that action-stopping involves two inhibitory processes: ) a fast Pause process, which broadly suppresses the motor system as the result of detecting any salient event, and ) a slower Cancel process, which involves motor suppression specific to the cancelled action.

Common and unique neurophysiological signatures for the stopping and revising of actions reveal the temporal dynamics of inhibitory control.

Inhibitory control is a crucial cognitive-control ability for behavioral flexibility that has been extensively investigated through action-stopping tasks. Multiple neurophysiological features have been proposed to represent 'signatures' of inhibitory control during action-stopping, though the processes signified by these signatures are still controversially discussed. The present study aimed to disentangle these processes by comparing simple stopping situations with those in which additional action revisions were needed.

Biophysical Modeling of Frontocentral ERP Generation Links Circuit-Level Mechanisms of Action-Stopping to a Behavioral Race Model.

Human frontocentral event-related potentials (FC-ERPs) are ubiquitous neural correlates of cognition and control, but their generating multiscale mechanisms remain mostly unknown. We used the Human Neocortical Neurosolver's biophysical model of a canonical neocortical circuit under exogenous thalamic and cortical drive to simulate the cell and circuit mechanisms underpinning the P2, N2, and P3 features of the FC-ERP observed after Stop-Signals in the Stop-Signal task (SST;  = 234 humans, 137 female). We demonstrate that a sequence of simulated external thalamocortical and corticocortical drives can produce the FC-ERP, similar to what has been shown for primary sensory cortices.

The human subthalamic nucleus transiently inhibits active attentional processes.

The subthalamic nucleus (STN) of the basal ganglia is key to the inhibitory control of movement. Consequently, it is a primary target for the neurosurgical treatment of movement disorders like Parkinson's disease, where modulating the STN via deep brain stimulation (DBS) can release excess inhibition of thalamocortical motor circuits. However, the STN is also anatomically connected to other thalamocortical circuits, including those underlying cognitive processes like attention.

Examining motor evidence for the pause-then-cancel model of action-stopping: Insights from motor system physiology.

Stopping initiated actions is fundamental to adaptive behavior. Longstanding, single-process accounts of action-stopping have been challenged by recent, two-process, 'pause-then-cancel' models. These models propose that action-stopping involves two inhibitory processes: 1) a fast Pause process, which broadly suppresses the motor system as the result of detecting any salient event, and 2) a slower Cancel process, which involves motor suppression specific to the cancelled action.

Biophysical modeling of frontocentral ERP generation links circuit-level mechanisms of action-stopping to a behavioral race model.

Human frontocentral event-related potentials (FC-ERPs) are ubiquitous neural correlates of cognition and control, but their generating multiscale mechanisms remain mostly unknown. We used the Human Neocortical Neurosolver(HNN)'s biophysical model of a canonical neocortical circuit under exogenous thalamic and cortical drive to simulate the cell and circuit mechanisms underpinning the P2, N2, and P3 features of the FC-ERP observed after Stop-Signals in the Stop-Signal task (SST). We demonstrate that a sequence of simulated external thalamocortical and cortico-cortical drives can produce the FC-ERP, similar to what has been shown for primary sensory cortices.

Early Action Error Processing Is Due to Domain-General Surprise, Whereas Later Processing Is Error Specific.

The ability to adapt behavior after erroneous actions is one of the key aspects of cognitive control. Error commission typically causes people to slow down their subsequent actions [post-error slowing (PES)]. Recent work has challenged the notion that PES reflects adaptive, controlled processing and instead suggests that it is a side effect of the surprising nature of errors.

Supra-second interval timing in bipolar disorder: examining the role of disorder sub-type, mood, and medication status.

Background: Widely reported by bipolar disorder (BD) patients, cognitive symptoms, including deficits in executive function, memory, attention, and timing are under-studied. Work suggests that individuals with BD show impairments in interval timing tasks, including supra-second, sub-second, and implicit motor timing compared to the neuronormative population. However, how time perception differs within individuals with BD based on disorder sub-type (BDI vs II), depressed mood, or antipsychotic medication-use has not been thoroughly investigated.

Inhibition of lexical representations after violated semantic predictions.

There is a consensus that humans predict upcoming words during sentence processing. Prediction makes language comprehension fast and efficient if this anticipatory processing is accurate. However, often times, predictions are not correct.

Measuring the nonselective effects of motor inhibition using isometric force recordings.

Inhibition is a key cognitive control mechanism humans use to enable goal-directed behavior. When rapidly exerted, inhibitory control has broad, nonselective motor effects, typically demonstrated using corticospinal excitability measurements (CSE) elicited by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). For example, during rapid action-stopping, CSE is suppressed at both stopped and task-unrelated muscles.

Supra-second interval timing in bipolar disorder: examining the role of disorder sub-type, mood, and medication status.

: Widely reported by bipolar disorder (BD) patients, cognitive symptoms, including deficits in executive function, memory, attention, and timing are under-studied. Work suggests that individuals with BD show impairments in interval timing tasks, including supra-second, sub-second, and implicit motor timing compared to the neuronormative population. However, how time perception differs within individuals with BD based on BD sub-type (BDI vs II), mood, or antipsychotic medication-use has not been thoroughly investigated.

Evoked mid-frontal activity predicts cognitive dysfunction in Parkinson's disease.

Background: Cognitive dysfunction is a major feature of Parkinson's disease (PD), but the pathophysiology remains unknown. One potential mechanism is abnormal low-frequency cortical rhythms which engage cognitive functions and are deficient in PD. We tested the hypothesis that mid-frontal delta/theta rhythms predict cognitive dysfunction in PD.

Cycling in the dark - the impact of Standard Time and Daylight Saving Time on bicycle ridership.

The European Union is in the process of abolishing the bi-annual clock change. Against this backdrop, we analyze how daylight and twilight affect the sustainable transport mode of cycling, and find that better daylight conditions generally lead to higher levels of cycling. The extent of this effect depends on the type of traffic and the time of day.

Lingering Neural Representations of Past Task Features Adversely Affect Future Behavior.

During goal-directed behavior, humans purportedly form and retrieve so-called event files, conjunctive representations that link context-specific information about stimuli, their associated actions, and the expected action outcomes. The automatic formation, and later retrieval, of such conjunctive representations can substantially facilitate efficient action selection. However, recent behavioral work suggests that these event files may also adversely affect future behavior, especially when action requirements have changed between successive instances of the same task context (e.

β-Bursts over Frontal Cortex Track the Surprise of Unexpected Events in Auditory, Visual, and Tactile Modalities.

One of the fundamental ways in which the brain regulates and monitors behavior is by making predictions about the sensory environment and adjusting behavior when those expectations are violated. As such, surprise is one of the fundamental computations performed by the human brain. In recent years, it has been well established that one key aspect by which behavior is adjusted during surprise is inhibitory control of the motor system.

Right inferior frontal gyrus damage is associated with impaired initiation of inhibitory control, but not its implementation.

Inhibitory control is one of the most important control functions in the human brain. Much of our understanding of its neural basis comes from seminal work showing that lesions to the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) increase stop-signal reaction time (SSRT), a latent variable that expresses the speed of inhibitory control. However, recent work has identified substantial limitations of the SSRT method.

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and government intervention on active mobility.

With data from automated counting stations and controlling for weather and calendar effects, we estimate the isolated impacts of the "first wave" of Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent government intervention (contact restrictions and closures of public spaces) on walking and cycling in 10 German cities. Pedestrian traffic in pedestrian zones decreases with higher local incidence values, and with stricter government intervention. There are ambiguous effects for cycling, which decreases in cities with a higher modal share of cycling, and increases in others.

Two Types of Motor Inhibition after Action Errors in Humans.

Adaptive behavior requires the ability to appropriately react to action errors. Post-error slowing (PES) of response times is one of the most reliable phenomena in human behavior. It has been proposed that PES is partially achieved through inhibition of the motor system.

A causal role for the human subthalamic nucleus in non-selective cortico-motor inhibition.

Common cortico-basal ganglia models of motor control suggest a key role for the subthalamic nucleus (STN) in motor inhibition. In particular, when already-initiated actions have to be suddenly stopped, the STN is purportedly recruited via a hyperdirect pathway to net inhibit the cortico-motor system in a broad, non-selective fashion. Indeed, the suppression of cortico-spinal excitability (CSE) during rapid action stopping extends beyond the stopped muscle and affects even task-irrelevant motor representations.

Novelty-induced frontal-STN networks in Parkinson's disease.

Novelty detection is a primitive subcomponent of cognitive control that can be deficient in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients. Here, we studied the corticostriatal mechanisms underlying novelty-response deficits. In participants with PD, we recorded from cortical circuits with scalp-based electroencephalography (EEG) and from subcortical circuits using intraoperative neurophysiology during surgeries for implantation of deep brain stimulation (DBS) electrodes.

Action errors impair active working memory maintenance.

The ability to detect and correct action errors is paramount to safe and efficient behavior. Its underlying processes are subject of intense scientific debate. The recent adaptive orienting theory of error processing (AOT) proposes that errors trigger a cascade of processes that purportedly begins with a broad suppression of active motoric and-crucially-cognitive processes.

Cortico-subcortical β burst dynamics underlying movement cancellation in humans.

Dominant neuroanatomical models hold that humans regulate their movements via loop-like cortico-subcortical networks, which include the subthalamic nucleus (STN), motor thalamus, and sensorimotor cortex (SMC). Inhibitory commands across these networks are purportedly sent via transient, burst-like signals in the β frequency (15-29 Hz). However, since human depth-recording studies are typically limited to one recording site, direct evidence for this proposition is hitherto lacking.

Neurocognitive development of novelty and error monitoring in children and adolescents.

The abilities to monitor one's actions and novel information in the environment are crucial for behavioural and cognitive control. This study investigated the development of error and novelty monitoring and their electrophysiological correlates by using a combined flanker with novelty-oddball task in children (7-12 years) and adolescents (14-18 years). Potential moderating influences of prenatal perturbation of steroid hormones on these performance monitoring processes were explored by comparing individuals who were prenatally exposed and who were not prenatally exposed to synthetic glucocorticoids (sGC).