O'Connell Redmond G, Dockree Paul M, Bellgrove Mark A, Kelly Simon P, Hester Robert, Garavan Hugh, Robertson Ian H, Foxe John J
Department of Psychology and Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland.
Eur J Neurosci. 2007 Apr;25(8):2571-9. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-9568.2007.05477.x.
Error-processing research has demonstrated that the brain uses a specialized neural network to detect errors during task performance but the brain regions necessary for conscious awareness of an error are poorly understood. In the present study we show that two well-known error-related event-related potential (ERP) components, the error-related negativity (ERN) and error positivity (Pe) have a differential relationship with awareness during performance of a manual response inhibition task optimized to examine error awareness. While the ERN was unaffected by the participants' conscious experience of errors, the Pe was only seen when participants were aware of committing an error. Source localization of these components indicated that the ERN was generated by a caudal region of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) while the Pe was associated with contributions from a more anterior ACC region and the posterior cingulate-precuneus. Tonic EEG measures of cortical arousal were correlated with individual rates of error awareness and showed a specific relationship with the amplitude of the Pe. The latter finding is consistent with evidence that the Pe represents a P3-like facilitation of information processing modulated by subcortical arousal systems. Our data suggest that the ACC might participate in both preconscious and conscious error detection and that cortical arousal provides a necessary setting condition for error awareness. These findings may be particularly important in the context of clinical studies in which a proper understanding of self-monitoring deficits requires an explicit measurement of error awareness.
错误处理研究表明，大脑在任务执行过程中会使用专门的神经网络来检测错误，但对于错误的意识觉知所必需的脑区却知之甚少。在本研究中，我们发现，在一项为检测错误意识而优化的手动反应抑制任务执行过程中，两个著名的与错误相关的事件相关电位（ERP）成分，即错误相关负波（ERN）和错误正波（Pe），与意识觉知有着不同的关系。虽然ERN不受参与者对错误的意识体验的影响，但Pe仅在参与者意识到犯错时才会出现。这些成分的源定位表明，ERN由前扣带回皮质（ACC）的尾部区域产生，而Pe则与更靠前的ACC区域以及后扣带回-楔前叶的贡献有关。皮质唤醒的静息脑电图测量与个体的错误意识率相关，并与Pe的波幅呈现出特定的关系。后一发现与以下证据一致，即Pe代表了由皮层下唤醒系统调制的类似P3的信息处理促进作用。我们的数据表明，ACC可能参与了前意识和意识层面的错误检测，并且皮质唤醒为错误意识提供了必要的背景条件。这些发现可能在临床研究背景下尤为重要，因为在临床研究中，正确理解自我监测缺陷需要对错误意识进行明确的测量。
